Polyester Striptease
by Cinders and Brimstone
Summary: Klaus is the resident villain. Bonnie undergoes a shady tutelage in order to level up. The master plan involves resurrecting a demon slayer. Stefan, Alaric and cameos by all our favorites. Half horror, half comedy! Read! Enjoy! D/B Yay!
1. Have you no pride?

It only lasted a moment.

Milliseconds, perhaps. About five or six hundred milliseconds. Nearly a whole second, he'd say. Odd, that after a century plus of existence he'd be able to appreciate time on such a minute level. Odd, to think he'd care about something that lasted maybe five hundred and fifty-nine (?) thousandths of a second, when he didn't much care about what happened the entire rest of the week gone, or the entire rest of the year gone, or the entire rest of the decade…

Odd.

He found himself frowning when the moment had passed. Confused, and inexplicably disappointed. A little cold, as if he were a baby and some harpy had just snatched his blanket away. A little…_aroused?_ Mentally, if not physically at least. Like that time he'd wandered into Heylon's Catholic Church and found himself wondering if female nuns looked the same under all that cloth as regular females. Was she the same under all those sweater layers and jeans? More curiosity than lust, but...

The look of utter relief on her face did very little in way of soothing his concerns. He felt as if he'd missed an opportunity… As if…

And Jeremy, the little rat brat! _Look at that face_. _Almost as if he's forgotten what I am. I'll–_

_Woah…_

_Hmmm?_

Was he actually…

No, he wasn't.

He was not. Not again

It always began innocent. It always began with these stupid, stupid, _moments! _That entire fiasco with Katherine; all because the first time he'd seen her, with her hair a pile of curls, one of those curls had been tumbling down loose to her neck… then her shoulder. That had been what had snared him that time and brought on that century of rage, murder and asshole-ness.

Then Elena. Pretty simple that one. She, being the living image of Katherine but light on the backstabbing, whoring and blood-drinking. A little heavy on the brother-loving though… Cue more asshole-ness.

He _had_ missed the opportunity, he realised, replacing his frown with a decent if half-hearted smirk… It could have gone so much differently. So much _better_. He could have done this. He could have done that. He should have… But all of that was in the past now. One full second in the past and he couldn't go back to it. Much as he wanted to. Or thought he might want to.

Unless he decided to be an ass about it.

Jeremy was one of those innocents he was supposed to care about as mandated by the Holier-Than-Thou Mystic Falls Council. He could kill the boy, but there'd be finger-pointing and sad-faces after. A pout here, a shaken head there… And she might not take too kindly to that. And he might not be able to compel her to _not_ give a damn, either.

Bonnie…

Was he really going to start this again? Was he that desperate? Katherine. Her look-alike. The bimbo best friend of the look-alike and now the wallflower one? Was he _that_ pathetic? He used to have standards. He used to have purpose in his life.

Elena was to correct the mistake. The ultimate rebound girl.

Caroline was… Well, he'd needed somebody to drink from, and a way to work himself into Elena's house…

But Bonnie… There'd be no defending that in any court.

And he'd have to ascend to even higher levels of… asshole-ness, too. He'd have to do something about Jeremy. For sure. Not kill him, but something equally effective and equally permanent. Then he'd have to… to what? Move? Because he wasn't going to sit around and play the love-struck, high-school-musical-watching, ass-licker in front of everyone else. He wasn't going to have Stefan playing social worker. He wasn't going to talk about it over beers with Alaric down in the Grill. He'd have to move _and _kidnap Bonnie. _And_ change her into a vampire as well. Keep her seventeen forever.

Spell 'paedophile'.

D-A-M-O-N. S-A-L-V-A-T-O-R-E.

And this wasn't even the _good_ Bonnie. This was the angry one who'd set him on fire and who took a peculiar, disturbing, retrospectively erotic joy in frying his brain every now and again. The good Bonnie he could have seduced with a wink and a snap of his fingers. This one… Why hadn't he gone for her back in the old time days, instead of… Well, instead of getting her grandmother killed and trying to rip her throat out?

Wow. Talk about laying the ground work for a love-hate relationship. He'd bring the love, she'd pack the hate and they'd meet up somewhere in the middle and sex it out. Or he'd pine to death. She'd keep on making signs of the cross when he passed her, and he'd take cold showers. Or hunt down a Bonnie look-alike…

_Why, though?_

Because of some fake little moment that existed only in his corrupted little mind? Had he no discipline? No control over his cock and his heart?

"Don't _touch_ me like–" she was saying.

Oh yes… she was _displeased_.

"Calm down, necromancer," he said, going to pains to keep the smirk in place. He was not going to transform into some blushing school-boy caught out with a boner for the math teacher. "Face-touching doesn't even qualify as a feel- up _and_ if I wanted to feel you up, I'd just do it."

Or he wouldn't, and he'd spend the ensuing months and years trying to fix himself in ten billion ways to earn her approval. Dye his hair to suit her handbag. Cut his wrists to fill her bathtub. All in hope for a smile and a promise that she'd love him one tenth of how he loved her. The Damon Salvatore MO, no? Fall ridiculously, embarrassingly in love with someone for no reason and end up holding the shitty end of the stick ten years later. By his luck, Jeremy would propose to her by next week. Next month she'd be pregnant with his kid and no one would care then that he'd had an accidental moment with her when he'd pulled a cobweb off her face.

He should have done it roughly, not so much like a caress. It had been innocent on his part. He'd just been trying to help out a friend, the way he would have pointed out if she'd had something in her teeth. Except maybe his hands had lingered a tad. But he'd wanted to be sure that he'd gotten it all, cobwebs been sticky and clingy, and that her face had gone back to perfect again. And…_fuck_.

They should have had more lights besides those blasted, fucking, good-for-shit candles.

_Or keep the candles and get a mattress with–_

"Damon," she scowled. "Can we just focus? Can you stop the touching and use whatever non-Alzheimer riddled portion of your brain to _read_? Can you do that?" she asked, as if he were retarded. And deaf.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I'm distracted."

"Damon…" Jeremy growled.

"Okay," Damon got to his feet pouting and dusted off the seat of his pants. He'd had enough for the day. Enough old haunted Witch-House, enough cobwebs, enough candles, enough grimoire-reading, enough chanting, enough pretending to be a living human being, enough drinking out of blood bags. And still not enough. "Necromancer, and co., I need–"

"What?" she asked stonily. "What Damon? There's Klaus and a hurricane of important problems looming over us, but what do _you _need?"

He smirked. Again. And sat back down. "You're face isn't symmetrical," he said, keeping his face in the book he'd been at for hours on end, straining his vampiric eyes to make out ages-old scratch-marks, "At all. And I hate people with your shit-colour green eyes. And you need to do something with your hair. Curls or straight. Either one is fine, but pick one and commit. And you're _not_ Elena."

"Relevance?"

"I'm just saying. It's not like I have some kind of obsession to be used and abused by each and everybody." And he settled the dusty, old tome of ancient illegal literature more snuggly into his lap. "Don't snap your fingers at me and expect me to jump."

"I didn't snap my fingers–"

"I'm just saying. Don't."


	2. We have some concerns

**AN: lol, I thought there'd be a way to put this in when I uploaded.**

**"Put it in the story!" Duh! So, sorry for the late intro. But hey, it's me. New to this whole thing... I thought all the stories used to happen by magic, but I had an epiphany recently. Not sure how long this is going to go for. About 10 -15-20 chapters (I have no idea and am just skipping in fives, if you noticed). I am super busy at school/university but I solemnly vow not to leave it hanging. So read in comfort. About two chapters a week, I'd say. Uhmmm… what else… Review, if you really like it. No criticism allowed. Joke. Uhm… The first three chapters are just like a prologue. A cohesive plot lies ahead. And… uhm…**

**I generally disclaim…**

* * *

><p>"It's the end of the world, and there's time for you to have sex with only one person. Who would you pick? Me or Stefan?"<p>

Jeremy didn't answer. Just stared.

"Who would you pick?" Damon persisted.

Jeremy looked away, obviously irritated, then smirked. It was a pretty good smirk, seeing that the boy was only seventeen and only starting to realise all that a smirk was supposed to mean. "Is this the part where you break my neck?"

"Not yet," Damon smiled, raking a fry through a puddle of ketchup in his plate. "But we're getting to it. Okay… End of the world. Sex with one person. Caroline or Elena?"

"How sick _are _you?"

"Remember, she's adopted."

"Remember, we're still related. By blood."

"This is Mystic Falls. Cousins are legal."

"Did you get the ashes?"

"Uhhh…." He hadn't. For lack of trying, precisely. He'd killed Bree with his own hands and he wasn't too keen on showing up on Ally's doorstep with a 'sorry I killed your mum, but here's the deal…' Call him a coward, but shirking responsibility was one of his skills. "I'm working on that." And by that he meant that he'd asked one of his shadier human acquaintances to break into the woman's house and steal the urn that was supposed to have the ash in it. He wanted little and less to do with all the ritual and voodoo ins and out. He was plagued enough as it was with witchcraft.

More than anything, he wanted out. He wanted freedom from Mystic falls and it undiversified people. Middle-aged women or teenagers. Where were the hot twenty-two years olds? The twenty-five year olds? The women at that stage between virgin and mother of two? Just because he looked young, didn't mean he was. He wasn't.

"Just get it. Bonnie needs it."

"Bonnie needs a good fucking. That's what she needs."

Cue the awkward. Alaric sputtered beer down the front of his shirt. Sputtered it up through his nose and damn near choked as he coughed up what had gone down into his lungs. The bartender continued flawlessly pretending to have heard nothing. Jeremy… Jeremy clenched his jaw, but didn't do or say anything except look condescending and constipated. "Not funny, Damon."

"Really? Cause I think it's hilarious. I–"

And that's when the door opened and she came in.

"Bonnie!" For some reason, it was Jeremy who went out on the task as if they weren't just deliberating over the particulars of her needs. The two of them went back and forth with the insipid pleasantries: 'I was looking for you', 'were you?', 'I love you so much', 'I've got homework'… Then Jeremy kissed her. Right there in front of him. Slid his hands down the witch's side, bit her bottom lip, swiped his tongue on her palate… Pretty much everything he could have done save from hitching up the girl's skirt and fingering her.

Then she broke away and frowned. Taking in the scene. Alaric managed to hold her eye contact for all of half a heartbeat before he whipped out his phone and pretended to have something to do with it.

"Witch," Damon greeted her, painting his face with boredom and disinterest.

"Damon," she greeted back. Frigidly. "You look…"

_Hot? Handsome? Better the Jeremy? Like a verified sex machine? Just like I do in your dreams but with more clothes?_

"…like you're not where you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be getting the ash. Why aren't you getting the ash?"

"Because…" This was another one of those times where it wouldn't do to tell the truth. "I was…" he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fine silver chain. Diamond pendants hanging from every other link in the metal. A work of eye-dazzling beauty. "I found this and thought… Maybe it'd help you or something."

She stared at it, like a cat at something shiny. "This is…" her eyes widened. "This belonged to Magwyr…"

"Yeah, yeah…" Damon dropped it into her hand as if it were nothing. As if it wasn't a priceless heirloom of one of the most powerful supernatural families to exist. "Red Maggy's very own."

"How'd you…"

_Get it? Not important, but it involved a lot of blood and an arrow. _"One week indentured as a sex slave."

She held it up in the light, displaying it for every cutthroat in the kingdom to see. "It's…"

He sauntered out of the place before she could finish what she was saying.

* * *

><p>Stefan frowned. "This is not going to end well."<p>

"What isn't going to end well?"

"This thing."

"What thing?"

"This thing with Bonnie."

"You mean resurrecting Geraldine, the demon slayer to kill Klaus? Of course, that's not going to end well. After she kills the big Papa Demon, she'll be coming after us little ones with a vengeance. Never to fear, I've stocked the bunker-cellar with enough blood to last a year or so, so we can hide out there and come up with a kickass plan."

"Relevant, but not what I'm talking about."

Damon narrowed his eyes and put on his 'if you dare' look. "Then enlighten me, my liege."

"This _thing _with Bonnie."

"The open friendliness?"

"Damon," Stefan groaned. "You're my brother and in some sick little way, I love you. You're a piece of shit sometimes, but I love you. Despite the fact that I hate you sometimes and wish the earth would swallow you whole."

"And?"

"This thing with Bonnie is going to end in tears. Yours."

Well, a refreshing angle, for once. "Hm?"

"Bonnie's not…" Stefan started and stopped. "The way I see it, you're dead last on the list of people Bonnie would look at. A- you more or less killed her grandmother. B- you bit her. C- you made a declaration of undying love to my girlfriend last month. Remember all that?"

"And…"

"I mean, look at you. Then look at Jeremy. Look at that clash up right there. I can't even think of something short of mental trauma that'd make Bonnie think about you in that light."

"You're like chicken soup laced with muriatic acid."

"Come on!" Stefan sighed. "She has zero interest in you!"

"Think I don't know that? I have a plan!"

"You have a plan…"

"I have two hundred years' experience in unrequited love. Of course I have a fucking plan. Think I'm just going to offer myself up on a side tray? I know what works and I know what doesn't. Hopeless devotion doesn't get me squat. I'm _not_ going with that again. This time, I'm going to be the one who's hard to get. And she's going to have to be the one offering herself up to me…"

"She doesn't want you, Damon!"

"She will. I gave her Red Mags' –"

"No…"

"Yes."

"The chain? Red Mags'?"

"Yeah, so it's pretty much a done deal."

"Why would you– Bonnie?" Stefan's mouth opened wordlessly, swallowing air for a while and letting the silence represent his disbelief. "You just woke up one day and thought you'd screw her life up? You are _not_ in love with her. And _more_ importantly, she is not in love with you! What the fuck is wrong with you, Damon? Do you or do you not remember Red Mag? And I _told _you to destroy the chain! You not only keep it, but you give it away to a teenage girl? _Another_ witch? Why– Oh. My. God! Damon!" He threw a lamp into a wall to add another exclamation point. "We have to deal with Klaus! Did I stutter when I described in detail the chaos that Klaus is bringing down on our heads? He has hoards of hybrids in his service. He's resurrected _both_ his witches and made them into hybrids too. He's on a warpath to convert every vampire and werewolf in the country, which includes me and you, and all we have between us is _one _witch. One witch, Damon, who _tolerates_ us at best. One witch who's willing to help us not only survive, but also willing to fight with us when she could _very _easily side with Klaus, the vampire who hasn't killed her grandmother IN A WILD GOOSE CHASE FOR THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE!" A half empty bottle of something or the other followed the lamp into the wall.

"I'm not directly to blame for the thing with the grams."

"Okay…" Stefan raked his fingers over his face, not clawing his eyes out as Damon wished he would. "So how about you go and get it back - the cursed object of our dear friend, Red Mags?"

"No."

"No?" He laughed sickly. "Okay. That's fine, Damon. I don't know what's going on with you. You're getting on in age. Feeling a little senile. Maybe it's the preservatives in the blood bags messing with your head. I don't know, but anyhow I look at it, you're not thinking clearly. Bonnie's not even your type!"

"Not my type? You do realise that I'm intimately familiar with the Bennett family line? I'd go out on a limb and say that with the exception of Emily and Sheila, I've–"

"My God…" Stefan sighed. "You are so disturbed…"

"I'm in love with someone that you're not in love with! This should be good news."

"And for some odd reason, it's not. What's you're malfunction, Damon? Love isn't some game you can just play at. You can't eenie meenie minnie moe this. Why Bonnie?"

"Off all the women in the world. I think Bonnie fits me best. She _gets_ me. The whole _meeee,_" he stretched the word. "And it's undeniable that we've got this tension."

"A rope with a man dangling on the end of it has tension, Damon."

"The kind of tension I'm talking about leads to sex. I have this running fantasy where she actually finds out that the chain _is_ hexed. We're at the Grill when she finds out and in her haste to rip it off she rips off her blouse. And her bra. There's like a shitload of people witnessing this, by the way. She's topless, and she uses her telekinesis thing to brace me up against the bar, and she's setting the place on fire – the sprinkler system comes on so she's all wet. She does that judgy thing with her mouth and she's like – 'you want sex so much, Damon, I'm going to sex you to death and–"

Stefan chortled. "That's an actual part of it? That line?"

"Sometime she doesn't even threaten me, she just starts ripping my pants off. With her teeth."

"Okay. No need for more detail. I've had enough of your confession to last, say, a decade. And she's not going to sex you to death. She's not gonna accidentally rip her bra off. There's no sprinkler system at the Grill, and the fire isn't going to be like some sexy firelight way off in the distance. The fire's gonna burn your ass to ash. Ash, Damon. Bonnie's not Katherine. She's not Elena. Remember when she lit your ass on fire that time with the Carnival? It's gonna be like that. Consider yourself warned."

* * *

><p><strong>Don't worry, and actual storyline is coming swiftly. This is Prologue 2.<strong>

**Reviewww, please! Please! Not like I'm begging...**


	3. Bad guys on stage in 4, 3, 2

It wasn't going very well, Klaus had to concede. He'd given them his vampire blood before the whole ceremony shtick just in case some random dude decided to get proactive. And guess what- some random dude had. Maddox had bit the dust early on in the game and Greta… well she'd almost made it to the end of the show before getting her neck broken.

But hey, vampire witches were good. Then he'd got the hack idea of giving them his new and improved blood… and that wasn't going too well. It was all too hard to keep control, and from time to time he wondered if he was in control at all or just acting it out because they chose to let him. Some people, witches, didn't handle power as magnanimously as he did. Hard to stomach, when your minions end up stronger than you.

Well, it was… in a way…

She came with his name on her lips and her teeth in his neck, milking him dry of everything he had in him. The knot of their bodies so tight he couldn't tell where she ended and he began. His own teeth were in her neck, taking back something for compensation's sake. The tightness around his cock, the press of her softness against him, the pain of her claws in his back, the magic in his mouth… Somewhere between all of that was a heartbeat, and that made perfect sense. Two halves should add up to something whole.

Then she pulled away from him. Left him cold and not quite satiated, still hard as stone, and disgruntles… A blanket and his hand had to finish him off while she sat at the edge of the bed staring out through the window. "The chain of Magwyr has been unearthed," she said, distant as ever.

"Should I care?"

"The witch has it."

"Again, should I care?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "You might want to."

He twisted in the bed, tying himself up horribly in the sheets, and came to settle his head in her lap. "You're not afraid of her, are you?"

She looked down at him with a scowl. A scowl that made him hard again. "Apologize for that."

Huh. He pushed his tongue into her navel then dragged it up between her breasts, across her chin, to whisper in her ear, "Sorry, love." It was different now. Before, she'd just been a plaything. Something nice and pretty to have in his employ, perfectly fuckable for those sad, lonely nights, and capable of other functions as well. Now, with her so strong... So immortal. So able to light him afire from the inside out... It was something else. He dragged his tongue back down again relishing the taste of her skin, found a nipple at the tip of a round breast and bit down sudden and hard. At the same time he sent a hand between her thighs roughly and up into her warm, tight wetness. She came instantly and just the feel of her tightening against his fingers and the hiss of his name made him explode for the second time in the night.

All fucking day, he'd missed her. He'd been distracted by the random, by the chores, by the redline and the red tape, and forgotten that there was no truth in the world other than what he could find in the sound of the right woman moaning his name. In the feel of the right woman's lips around his cock. Because that's where they'd ended up, somehow.

One hand on his balls, the other on his belly, and just like that he was helpless. He came again, when her fangs bit into his flesh, and again when her fingernails went into his balls. That one brought tears to his eyes. God, she was wicked.

**...**

Maddox had the courtesy of knocking, at least. Greta didn't stir. She'd never been a light sleeper before, but now… it'd taken thunder to wake her.

"What's the news off the front?" he asked, rousing himself from the daze. There were other things he had to pay attention to besides the sleeping woman.

"They have three of the eight keys for Geraldine."

"Which one did they get? The ash or the sword?"

"Ash. Elijah has the sword, so at least we know for sure that that one's secure."

"Do we? My brother Elijah has all the loyalty of a two cent whore. All you have to do is buy him a cup of tea, and he'll turn a trick for you."

Maddox snickered. He and the Original hadn't taken too much of a shine to one another, and from the way Klaus saw it, it was just a matter of time before a certain dusty dagger came into play. And he couldn't care less. They were both two grown men and they could hate each other, kill each other or fuck each other for all he cared. As long as they did it on their own personal time in their own personal place. "And our good boy Stefan?"

"Still lying low."

"And the brother with good hair?"

"The hair's a little longer but…" Maddox shrugged.

Witches did that a lot it seemed, shrugging. When Greta did it, it was sultry. On Maddox, it was… somehow still sultry… Downside to frequent blood sharing, he supposed. The amount of time's he'd fed from Maddox and the amount of times the whelp of a thing had fed from him… He'd tried to keep the affection good and fatherly in the beginning, but now, something was taking an eraser to all the lines he'd drawn. "What about the other witch? The BFF of the DPG."

"Stronger than ever. Out for blood, too."

"Speaking about blood and witches, how did _you_ manage to come by yours? You don't _look _black, I mean."

Maddox shrugged, again. "I'm probably somewhere on the tree, though. One of them distant branches."

Klaus did a little shrug of his own, nothing particularly stylish, and surveyed the man-witch. There was a little ethnic flavouring to the man. It was there in the lips perhaps. The pouty bow shape lips just like Greta's– "What do you say to causing a little havoc? Upturning some apple carts down in the old village?"

"Anyone in particular? Or just random apple carts?"

"How do you feel about a chance encounter with the angry Sabrina? I want to check on my boys. My _other_ boys. You're still my number one so don't be jealous."

**...**

"So…" Klaus said with a smile as he leaned over the tombstone inscribed _Jenna, _"When you found out I was going to sacrifice a vampire, who'd you _think _I was going to kill? Hmm?" They were all gathered together, nice and neat at the graveside. Perhaps not as sad as they should have been, but the one girl behind Stefan, the DPG, looked particularly misty-eyed. The witch girl, still badass, or trying to look badass. Angsty boyfriend of the badass-witch, check. School-teacher, check. Wild-eyes, check. Steffy, check. Goldilocks, check.

The reaction was priceless. Stefan was the first one to notice Maddox, and cue the chest-puffing. Wild-Eyes looked confused.

"I don't mean to intrude," he said quickly. With Wild-Eyes around, heart-grabbing could start at any moment and he thought it best to forswear with all the little jibes he'd had planned and get to the meat of the matter. "But I have a proposal. I want to get in on the action."

"What action?" Wild-Eyes asked.

Ohh… he just remembered. "You killed my girl, dude," he said, waving a teasing finger at the young vampire. "Normally, I'm a firm believer in the eye-for-an-eye philosophy. I'd planned to come kill _your_ girl but you kinda… Well. You kinda don't have one…" he trailed, with as mocking a smirk as he could muster. "How do you deal? Rub it out under the covers?"

"Your mum stops by from time to time."

Oh. He surveyed the group. "He's the witty one, I suppose." His gaze fluttered over Jeremy. "You're the emo who sees dead people…" He studied Bonnie. "Resident Bitch who I owe one count of excruciating pain... School teacher, Goldilocks, K-lite and Steffy-Webby… What say we all have a little sing-along and get to know one another?"

Then he took a step towards Bonnie, just to gauge how easy it would be to get within killing distance, because after all, he'd only have to kill that one person in order to make his troubles go away. No witch, no resurrection, no demon slayer.

Not very easy at all, it turned out. K-lite screamed the alarm. She-man Goldilocks had him by the throat and off his feet. Someone had been eating their spinach… Emo… didn't do much… Steffy-Webby was in the process of using his big brawny body as a shield for the witch and the DPG… The school teacher was pulling a stake out of his jacket and Damon…

Well, who'da thunk it? Damon was going for his heart.

Well, golly. He hadn't even felt the fingers go in. Hadn't felt the ribs crack either. Only the little tingle down his arm had saved him. His eyes met Damon's. Those pretty, ice blue, desperate eyes.

Familiar eyes.

He remembered going through something a little similar. When the sacrifice had got loose and had its teeth on Greta. He recognized the little telling signs of desperate, pleading panic. In the short space of time, two weeks if so much, the jerkass assclown had grown some tender feelings for the witch-bitch. Would luck have it any other way? A little unexpected, that. Last he'd known, K-lite had been the Aphrodite of the group. Now…

Some sorcery, maybe. Or maybe she was one of those secret karma sutra specialists and was giving Damon a little extra motivation for the bodyguard job…

And really… Damon had a thing for high-school girls. Not a man big on maturity, him. The younger, the naïve-er, the innocent-er the girl, the better Damon liked. Klaus didn't really care. True-love or a drive-tru hook-up, either way he'd have to deal with the Salvatore black sheep. Either way, he'd be killing them both. Giving Girly her own pretty tombstone, and scattering Wild-Eye's ashes to the wind.

And he didn't even stop, the Damon. The fucking fingers closed around the organ and squeezed. Klaus felt the thing pop in his chest like a cherry.

Always one for dramatics, he shuddered and pretending to crumble against the young buck of a vampire. He propped his chin on the shoulder and sagged limp as a jelly- fish. Then he curled a grin. "You have a follow-up move for this? Or is it my turn?"

What was it with people and their failure to comprehend the meaning of the word immortal?


	4. I'm not your monkey

The boarding house was in pure chaos. Confusion reigned.

Bonnie waited on the sofa in the living room, feet pulled up under her, feeling small, stranded, disappointed and hungry. Small, because the sofa was large... The cushions near swallowed , because she didn't want to be at the boarding house at all, bearing witness to the macabre. She wanted to be home. At her own home, or even better, back at Witch-House, where she wasn't in anybody's way. Where she didn't have vampires breathing (or not breathing) down her neck... Disappointed, because she'd expected _more_... And hungry because she hadn't eaten since the night before. Elena had called her up for an impromptu grave-sitting and she hadn't had time to grab breakfast. Elena had summoned and she had responded to the call.

It would be rude now, to leave and grab something to eat. She'd come back, but they'd notice her absence while she was gone and some one of them would make a deal out of it. And Stefan would take it personally. Elena was in tears. Big, globby tears streaked the girl's face as she doubled herself over in the armchair. Alaric, poised on the armrest, gave her one his teacher's-pet pats on the back, then shot her a look that she interpreted as –'_well, you're the best friend, you console her_.'

How about: '_I'm sorry you're boyfriend's brother got his hand ripped off. He's not going to die, though. He'll just be handicapped for all the rest of his existence unless he can grow it back. There's about ten different spells I could try to help him grow it back, but I won't. Because he's an ass. And I don't waste my magic on asses. Cheer up! Even if he did die, would we miss him? Remember, you still have Stefan… you're actual boyfriend… _"I'm sure he's going to be fine," she said instead, putting just enough concern on her face to look sincere. "Damon's strong, and it's just an arm." _Could have easily been a head. If Klaus had been serious, it very well could have been. _

"Can't you help him, though?"

_Yuuuup, but not gonna... "_He's dead, Elena. Undead, I mean. I can't heal undead people. And it's not even healing we're talking about. That's regeneration of a limb. _A whole limb_."

"What about that chain he gave you?" her best friend in the world continued. "Isn't that supposed to be some kind of power booster something? You _owe _him, Bonnie. And he was trying to help _you! _He got between you and Klaus and–"

_Easy, there… _"The chain doesn't work like that!"

It worked exactly like that.

Magwyr, Red Magwyr, Magwyr the Red-Handed, Magwyr the Blood-drinker… She'd done the research the very day Damon had given the chain to her. Went through the archives with a fine comb…

Red Mags, as Stefan called her, was initially a witch out of the pacific. From one of the islands off New Zealand. Then when she'd run into Klaus, or some other seemingly invincible Big Bad, she'd done much the same as Bonnie had and leveled herself up with the power of some dead witches. Not a hundred, but a good bit. With that she'd manage to keep the Big Bad at bay, but ever a cautious woman she'd decided to stock up on some _more_ power. Just in case.

Cue the slaughter of a thousand werewolves and over ten thousand vampires. As it turned out, vampires and werewolves boasted their own form of magic. Vampires, in the form of their blood – power strong enough to reanimate the dead. Werewolves, in their metamorphoses – power enough to grow bone and flesh, fang and fur, and strip it away again in a heartbeat. Popularly, _black _magic, and it was perfectly harnessable if one knew what one was about.

Mags had definitely known what she was about.

She'd drank the blood of vampires. She'd gone so far as to _force_ them into breeding more vampires just to meet her demands. In effect, she became to vampires what vampires were to humans. Not such a bad idea, as far as Bonnie was concerned. It was good that someone had put the shoe on the other foot, for once.

But then, Mags started eating werewolves. Actually _eating_ them, and given that werewolves were mostly human 99.9 per cent of the time, Bonnie had to put that one in the "cannibalism" column. Big no-no, cannibalism. In any society, in any century.

Downside was, though, that witches, being servants of nature and all that, and black magic being decidedly _un_natural, weren't made to keep black magic in themselves. Not for long at least. The power faded and faded in Mags… Until she had found a way to store the power outside of her body. In the diamonds of the chain.

How she'd done it, Bonnie didn't know. What had happened to her – how she'd died, what had become of her family, how the two Salvatores had come by the chain, Bonnie didn't know. Pages had been ripped out of all the histories she'd come across and Stefan, for once, couldn't supply the missing details. '_We found it in the basement', _was all he'd said.

What mattered was that the power was there. In each one of those pretty, sparkly diamonds. And she could turn the world upside down, if she wanted to. She was in the big leagues. Borrowed power or not, it was hers now. To be used at _her_ discretion -_ not_ to do fancy patch jobs on Damon. Not to do favors, and make rings, and heal vampire boo-boos.

She felt the diamonds burn hot against her skin and leaned forward. "If there was anything I could do, Elena, I'd do it. You know I would." _Because I love Damon so much. Never mind that he's the bane of my existence. Never mind that he treats me like some witch for hire, expected to sacrifice myself whenever the situation calls for it. Look at his hair! And his eyes! OMG, isn't he hot? He can kiss my ass and die._ "I'm so sorry, Elena. If there was anything–"

A creaking from the staircase distracted her. Stefan, bouncing down… And behind him… Damon. With both his hands. The right one drastically paler than the other, with bulging blue veins snaking under the skin, but there going all the way up to the shoulder, she assumed. His eyes were red, and his whole body seemed thinner. And…

"I like getting limbs ripped off as much as the next guy. Really, I do. But let's not do this again, yeah?" He pulled back a drape and held his re-grown arm into the sunlight. "This is the fourth time that I've had to grow this back. Next time I'll just leave it off..."

Elena leapt out of the chair. Actually leapt and ran towards them… _ran… _And… At the last minute, she diverted and threw her arms around Stefan. "I'm so glad everything's okay."

"How the fuck is everything okay?" Damon snapped. "There's a reincarnated warlock with hybrid powers handing out aneurysms like they have an expiry date on 'em. I swear, I was _blind_ for two whole minutes. I got my ass handed to me by Klaus. He ripped my hand off. _Ripped_ it off, and everything's okay? He's playing with us as if we're half dead mice! What drug are you on, Elena? Cause I'd like to try it."

"I mean…" she fumbled.

"And what the hell, Bonnie? What the fuck was that?" Damon barked.

How did the conversation reach her? What had she done wrong? She'd waited, despite the protestations of her stomach, being the dutiful and concerned friend. She'd expressed earnest interest in wishing him a speedy recovery, disregarding her refusal to assist in the speeding up of that recovery… Even at the cemetery… after he'd had his hand ripped off and after Klaus had flung him aside like a dirty, mildewed ragdoll… She hadn't done anything. She hadn't laughed, because she could have. She hadn't spat on him. She hadn't kicked dirt in his eyes. She hadn't even said something snarky. Because she could have. The timing would have been inappropriate, but she could have. "What are you talking about?" she asked blandly.

"I'm talking about the freeze-up."

"What freeze-up?"

"Where Klaus moves to rip out your throat and you _froze up_?

"He wasn't going to rip my throat out."

"He most definitely was. I'd know."

"Because you've written the book on all there is to know about ripping throats out?" She paused, gave him the chance to say something back in his defense, but he abstained. "And your smart-ass idea was to let him rip your hand off?" she pressed. For some reason. Maybe, she was being a bit... bitchy. Whyever he'd jumped into action, concern for their well-being had been at the core of it. Even if "their well-being" was synonymous with "for Elena". Maybe he didn't deserve her driving in the barbs just then. Maybe she could be a smudge more sympathetic, considering he'd just had his arm torn off defending them. She should at least admire that he'd had the mojo to grow back his arm all on his own. No small task, that. "News flash, Damon. I've got the power of a hundred witches _and_ Mags' talisman. I can handle Klaus."

Damon sighed. "Okay, Witch. You are the lord and master of the universe," he said wearily, pressing his palm to the glass. Testing the feeling in it, apparently. "None may stand before you. You are wisdom and power in flesh. Now…" he turned to shoot her a crazy-eyed leer, "Exactly how fucking close are you to resurrecting Geraldine? Whatever the plan is, accelerate it. Cause this shit is getting stale. The next time Klaus pops up, I'm just going to sit back and watch the show."

"Voyeur."

Silence fell. She hadn't meant to say it like that. So… suggestively. She shouldn't have tried the smirk. That was his thing. And there'd been nothing to suggest, really. It was his reaction that made it all so… awkward.

His hand had gone through the window pane it had been pressed against. Not as if he'd punched it or anything. Just that, instead of leaning against it, his hand went through. And his recovery wasn't quick at all. His mouth opened, then snapped shut. He tried smiling to cover it up, then smirking, then… Then he just stopped and stared at her.

Stefan was staring at her, glaring, for some reason. Elena was too. Alaric… Alaric was looking at his shoes.

"What?"

"Nothing..." Stefan said.

Damon's eyes went everywhere. Down to his feet, up to the ceiling, at the wreckage of the window. "Let's reboot the axis. What say we move on with the conversation? I was saying something about- Wait, where's McConaughey?"

"Who?" Alaric asked.

"Ghosts of girlfriends past?"

"He went to the blood bank, to swipe some more blood for you," Stefan answered, with a tone Bonnie didn't get. Something big was going on just on the periphery of her awareness. Something suspect.

"Like I'd drink that," Damon snorted. "He's probably putting 'Vervain, High-Concentrate' in it as we speak."

Bonnie frowned. "He wouldn't -"

"Because Jeremy's perfect and innocent, and I'm evil and would deserve it even if he had," he drawled.

"You took the words out of my mouth."

"I'll put something _in_ your mouth-"

_Eww... _Bonnie cringed.

"Food," he followed up, too late. "Food. I meant food." Damon floundered in his perch on the windowsill and fixed his attention on the sunset outside. "I'm talking about putting food in her mouth. Not... She's hungry! I can _hear_ her stomach growling. Just feed her, somebody, before she gets gassy... And colicky. Even _more _full of hot air... And where the fuck is my arm, by the way? The old one? Anybody pick it up, or we just left it in the mud?" He glared at each one of them, as if daring them to say - _We put it in a jar..._

No one had, of course. The situation hadn't allowed.

"Let's everyone walk all over Damon..." he muttered under his breath, sliding off his temporary seat and snatching his keys off the coffee table. "He won't mind. No need to show him gratitude. He's easy like that."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: gosh, this is fun. Thanks to the reviewers. Nice to know that <em>somebody's<em> reading it. And enjoying it! **

**Big thanks going out!**

**About 2 more chapters 2moro or sunday. **

**Had to use the "easy like that" line.**

**Bonnie's a little out of character? I don't know. . Bonnie's way harder to write than Damon, somehow...  
><strong>

**(unrelated: Just finished the audiobook to "the heroes" by joe abercrombie. Excellent. so if you have time, and nothing to read/listen to...)**


	5. Stop, in the name of love

_My friends are my friends._

_The enemy of my enemy is my friend._

_The enemy of the boyfriend of my friend, and the enemy of my friend's boyfriend's brother is also my enemy._

_The boyfriend of my friend is my friend. The friend's boyfriend's brother is my friend… for now. Until he does commits a fresh atrocity…_

_And the friend's brother is my boyfriend… _

Bonnie eyed her coat on the hook with longing. Was there a spell in the grimoire for teleporting? She'd check the next chance she got. Jeremy was sitting next to her on the carpet talking about something trivial and pointless. That was the good thing about Jeremy. It was hard to have a serious thought with him around. That was the bad thing about Jeremy, too. His cuteness was jarring at times. He came with more tied on obligations than a three week old puppy. Give it water. Take it for a walk. Shots. Is he pre-neutered, or will I have to bring him back in? Does he have a worm infestation? Feed him four square meals of love daily. Grooming. Shit-cleaning.

Well, no. The ghost-shit was more or less her fault. She'd done that. It wasn't as if someone had held a gun to her head and forced her to bring him back to life. Not literally, at least. But had it played out any other way, the invitations to the Best Friends Club Meetings would have gotten lost in the mail for sure. _Hey Bonnie, remember my brother? The one you let die? Yeah, we're having an anniversary brunch, wanna come?_

"I thought you'd be finished here by now," he said under his breath, and she can relate to that feeling.

Something had rekindled the old animosity between him and Damon. It would have had to be a pretty massive 'something', given that he'd taken having his neck broken by the guy not too badly. He was all smiles with Caroline and her mom, considering that Ms Quick-Draw had plugged him with a bullet. Jeremy was all 'forgive and forget'. Not to say that he was stupid. He wasn't. He just wasn't… _vengeful_.

"I'm going to try something. Probably safer that I do it here. Damon's right, we need to accelerate this resurrection spell. We have the first two items – Tongue of the One-Eyed Tiger and Heart of the Striped Cobra. We're not going to be that lucky with the rest. You can't go to the zoo for everything–"

"What about the ash?" he asked. "Damon got it as yet?"

She tapped the bulge in her purse. "Ash of the Heartless Witch. Got it. That makes three. I've tried a summoning twice for the Sword of White Bone, and it's failed. _Twice_. What does that tell you?"

"That someone's blocking it? Someone already has it? Someone like Klaus, maybe… That's why he came earlier… To see what we were up to?"

Well, give the boy a cookie. She flashed a smile. "Exactly, which leaves us one of two options."

"Hard way or easy way," he nodded. "And of course, Damon suggests the hard way, because 'hard way' for you is 'easy way for him'. I don't want you to try something you're not ready for, Bonnie. I mean, you're still learning how to–"

"I'm the strongest person in this house, Jere. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done! If Klaus was only coming after Damon, _I'd let Damon die,_" she mouthed silently, _"_but after he kills Damon, he's going after Stefan again and Stefan doesn't deserve that. If there's such a thing as a half decent vampire, it'd be Stefan. And Caroline. The two of them are vampires, but their our friend to. Not to mention, I did try to screw him up during his sacrifice and I don't want to rest easy counting on the saving grace of his mercy. If there's going to be a fight, the best thing to do is to arm up early and try to take the bitch down."

"I get that, but–"

"You don't have to stay–"

"Yeah, you really don't. See you later." Damon sat down on the carpet on her left side, looking… refreshed. Still, with both hands. Hair, wet and pulled back from his face. His face, almost pink, he seemed flushed. Lips almost red... He'd fed. _Oh…_

Before he could catch her staring, or remark on catching her staring, she diverted. "Come to lend a hand?"

"Ha. So funny. Rolling on the floor laughing my hot ass off," he sneered at her then called to the rest of the guys in the kitchen. "Are we ready or what?"

They we're ready. They'd been ready since Jeremy had arrived. She'd run over the plan with Stefan and he'd thought it was solid. Five items remained – Sword of White Bone; Eye of the Yellow Yeti; Ring-Finger of the Imp King; Blood of the Underwater Beast; and Guts of the Apocalypse Walking. Five of them capable of going out and getting it – herself, Damon, Stefan, Tyler and Caroline. All they had to do was–

They made a circle on the floor, Stefan next to her right, Tyler continuing the chain, Caroline, and all around to Damon on her other side. "Okay," she took a deep breath, tightening her grip on Stefan's hand. Damon's grip was warm and tight on her other. His new hand, she noted. "Everybody–"

"Wait!" Tyler pulled his hands free of Carline's and Stefan's. "I'm not sure what's going on here. Caroline said, that you're a witch, and I'm cool with that…" he paused, picking his words slowly, "Except I don't want to get cursed or anything. I'm already cursed with the werewolf thing and–"

_If Mags was here, she'd eat him for sure._ "No Tyler, I'm not going to curse you."

"Then how come–"

"Are you a were_wolf_ or a were_ass_?" Damon shot.

"Asks the fulltime, live-in ass," Caroline quipped.

"Tyler," Stefan in his world weary voice, "Just sit down and hold our hands, okay? Bonnie's not trying to curse you. I swear. We need to find some things and this spell is going to _bind _us to the items. Make them easier for us to locate, okay? It'll work better with us instead of regular humans, but that's it. Please?"

Tyler remained frozen for half a minute more, wrestling with his thoughts before sitting back down. Jeremy and Elena took their place in the middle of the circle. "Remind me again…" she asked, half laughing, half trying to not look afraid, "Remind me why we have to take centre stage in your spell?"

"Because as the only two good old regular humans in this house, the two of you have to represent Mystic Falls. The five of us are naming ourselves, protectors over '_Mystic_ _Falls'_ and by doing so, the spell is going to '_guide' _us to the '_equipment' _we'll need as _protectors_."

"And there go all of my misgivings about this," Elena chuckled. "Remember that I love you like a sister…" she smiled.

"I trust you completely, Bonnie," Jeremy chirped in.

That made her smile for the moment, because the expression on his face didn't match what he was saying at all. The expression was saying something more along the lines of – _I'm already haunted, so unless I actually get sent to hell this time, it can't get worse. _"You can always trust me to–"

"Easy on the Hallmark moments, Bon," Damon cut in, and near crushed her hand in his with a sick grin. "Everybody trusts everybody. We're sitting in a veritable _circle of_ _trust. _No one's cursing anybody, and everybody loves Jeremy and Elena. Amen. Now, can we do this? Some people don't have curfews and have other places to be on a Saturday night."

_Ignore him…_

She shut her eyes and closed her mind off from all the distractions. The diamonds flared hot against her skin as if they were on fire. The magic came to her so swiftly, so powerfully… She'd barely had time to chant the words out loud, just thinking them had got the spell going.

It was as if she were moving at 1000 miles per hours. Flying. Traveling through night and day… Through time. Turn left and go into the past. Turn right and enter the future. "_I…" _She stopped. Who was she speaking to? Was she still sitting on the carpet in the Boarding house, or was she… in a different dimension… Drifted out of space and time… Lost forever… There was nothing around her. _Nothing_. Nothing under her feet, nothing over her head… Just nothing…

Except a voice. A shrill, cracking, unused voice.

"_Looking for something?"_

…**  
><strong>

"Did it work for you?" Stefan asked. "I got 'Blood of the Underwater Beast'. It's nothing special… Just a two-headed shark… somewhere in the ocean."

Damon took a breath to steady himself. "I got the Sword. It's with Elijah. The bastard." Bonnie wasn't breathing. Otherwise she was doing fine. No nose bleed. No ear bleed. No bleeding at all. She hadn't toppled over or collapsed or anything. She was still sitting there holding his hand… Except she wasn't breathing.

"I had a vision…" Tyler or someone was saying, "The Yellow Yeti is… a giant. Not like a real giant but like a ten foot dude… He lives in Belfast…"

Still, no breathing. Why was no one else noticing, Damon wondered. Should he panic? Should he be panicking?

Caroline, "And the Imp-king's a dwarf. Midget. Little person. What's that, irony?" she giggled at Tyler, "You get a giant and I get a little person?"

_Don't panic. Do not panic. Somebody else is bound to notice. Stefan is bound to notice. Stefan does these things all the time. He's the good brother. He's the responsible brother. You're the scoundrel. The one with the devil-may-care attitude. _He shifted. _Squirmed,_ more like. His free hand quivered and before he knew it he had his own wrist in his mouth, ripping through his skin.

"Woah!" Stefan shouted, jumping to his feet. Elena screamed.

"What are you doing?" Jeremy yelled.

"She's not breathing!" he yelled back. "She's not breathing!"

"Shit," Stefan bit off and had two fingers on Bonnie's neck feeling for a pulse. One second, two seconds… "Shit."

Damon pressed his bleeding hand to the girl's mouth and waited. Hoped. Prayed even…

_This is just my luck. Just my fucking luck. I hold her hand for five minutes and she dies… _

_If she comes back to life, I won't ever drink human blood again. If she comes back to life, I donate my entire bank account to charity. I won't ever think about killing Jeremy again. Neither Stefan. I won't kill anything, ever again. Not even werewolves. Let her come back and I'll be good. I swear–"_

Too quickly for him to process, the life returned to her body. Her hot tongue flickered over his wrist, and she sucked.

She could as well have been sucking his dick for the effect it had. _God_…

He'd never been fed on before… and it was…

Just the slightest bit painful. She'd moved without him noticing, somehow. She was kneeling now, right in front of him, with one hand on his throat. Amazing grip for a cheerleader. He could feel the cartilage around his windpipe splintering. A thumb was moving uncomfortably up into the soft spot under his chin. And still, she sucked at his hand – the one he was still holding out to her willingly. His other hand…

What the fuck was he doing with his other hand? Not touching himself, surely. No. It was there on her chest, feeling her steady thumping heartbeat, innocently enough.

Ah. She broke something. Hot, thick blood gurgled his throat, filled his mouth, leaked out from the corners of his lips.

_Ah… _She kissed him. Tongue and everything. Her cute, bloody-red chipmunk tongue darted into his mouth. Their teeth clashed and he opened to give her free entry to his mouth _and the blood in it_. He'd always been an open-access kinda guy. _'Bonnie_…_' _he moaned mentally, trying to close the distance between their bodies. He needed friction. He needed–

_Ah!_ She broke the hand that he'd been trying to use to pull her head closer to his. Just broke it. Kinky, but _super_ painful. His new hand, to boot.

He pulled away sharply. "Bonnie–"

A knee rubbed against the hardness in his jeans. His body trembled.

Was he being raped? Could it be rape if he wanted it with every fibre of his being? Was rape a matter of desire or control? He had at least two dozen rape fantasies, but none of them quite like this one. He'd allowed for being tied up, for being blindfolded, drugged, held down telekinetically by a coven of witches and forced to breed with them for the rest of his natural life… but he'd never put Bonnie in one.

And he'd tried to think about everything when it came to Bonnie. He'd replayed the "I'm a virgin' scenario so many times he'd bruised himself. He'd even run the prospects of a threesome with she, him and Jeremy. He'd put that down at the very most extreme limit of possible, but still, he'd catered for it. If he'd been willing to suffer that, what was a little rape?

"_Bonnie_…"

"_Vampire,_" a mocking cold voice echoed in his head. A blade or a fingernail punctured a vein in his neck and his body tensed and shivered cold. She pulled away from him for a half instant, her eyes bright as stars, and cold as starlight too. Full of lust and hunger. Then her lips, those sumptuous, kissable, suckable lips latched on to the wound in his neck.

His vision blurred.

_Just like Katherine after all. From one blood-sucking bitch to the other – story of my life. Out of the frying pan into the volcano. _

"Help." Didn't he have a brother somewhere? What were they doing, just watching him get raped? "For fuck's sake, somebody help me!"


	6. Fifteen Minute Rule,  it's still good

She spat out the toothpaste in the sink, and heaped a fresh glob on the toothbrush. She'd been brushing her teeth for near ten minutes. "What, Damon? What?"

"Well, what's with the mouth-scouring? I'm not infectious, you know."

"I _don't_ know. For all I know your blood could be a reservoir for every transmissible disease to ever plague mankind."

"Ouch."

She went back to scrubbing her teeth, then she spat again, put down the toothbrush, turned to face him and glared. With one hand she reached under her hair and pulled up the necklace. "Did you know?"

"Did I know what?"

Her eyes hardened. "How could you?"

"I thought you could handle it," he answered with a shrug. "You're the big bad witch, right? You can do anything, so I thought, hey – why not?"

"As long as you get what you want, right?" she jangled the chain and set all the pretty, annoying, accursed diamonds rattling. "How'd you get this, by the way?"

"Found it."

"Liar."

He couldn't help the grin that spread over his face. "Am I speaking to Bonnie here or–?"

"It's okay. I'm back in control," she smiled, deviously. "But Mags says hi."

Huh. Damon tensed. He'd had a plan for this, but Bonnie wasn't following the script. Not at all. "Mags…" he whispered the name, looking for a spark of recognition on those judgy angry eyes. Nothing… It had been there before, but it was gone now. "You… You spoke to her?" he frowned.

"I'm not possessed. Mags is still dead and gone, don't worry. She says hi, is all."

It had taken the combined efforts of Stefan and Tyler to pull her off of him. By the end, she'd broken his left collarbone, two of his ribs and bit off an ear. There was something utterly seductive about a woman biting off your ear and sticking her tongue down the hole. He'd lost his shit entirely when she'd pressed a finger into his eye, but the thing with the ear had been nice. He hadn't minded that too much.

Healed and cleaned up, though, the regret was starting to set in. Another missed opportunity to add to the books. _One step forward and a hundred steps back. _He'd gone all the way back to the fucking Ice Age. "_Hi? _Mags was always a bit of a blabber mouth. I can't believe that's _all_ she said."

She smiled at him, all rainbows and butterflies. "Well, she had a lot to say about _you_, Damon. Wanna hazard a guess?"

_No_. He did not need to hazard a guess. Red Magwyr, the wicked witch of the South Pacific, had come waltzing up his path one day, looking for a fresh victim and/or a good fuck. He'd given her both, settled in perfectly into the role of Favoured Guinea Pig without a single complaint. He'd needed a witch to help him with the tomb and she'd needed a vampire to refill her blood prescription. At one point, she'd actually had him strapped into a chair in a blood bank, _literally _donating his blood. How many of those bags had he filled out? He'd bent over backwards for her, facilitating every fancy she could come up with.

Needless to say, she hadn't been near so helpful in recovering the then love of his life from the tomb. The first time he'd mentioned it, she'd laughed in his face. The second time, she'd been stoic and the third and last time she'd seemed positively _hurt_. Jealous, almost.

Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned. There was truth in that.

"I _had_ to kill her," he said flatly. He had nothing to be ashamed of. He was the victim. He'd been the victim then and he was the victim now. "And don't start casting judgment down on me. My fingers are still blue." He held out his hand towards her, the one that wasn't broken. "Just give it back, and I'll bury it. It's supposed to be a talisman. I'd thought that of all people _you'd_ be able to overcome the curse of Mags' lust and insanity, but…" he trailed off with a smirk and a shirk of his shoulders.

She shrank away from him. "I'm not giving it back."

"Yeah, you are. It's mine. It belongs to me–"

"How'd you figure that? She wants _me_ to have it."

"She's dead. Her wants are irrelevant."

"It belongs with a witch. You don't understand, but what you did– You throttled her to death with her own talisman while you were…"

_Yes, while I was making sweet, passionate love to the angel of a lady, I reached around with my free hand and twisted the fucking chain around her neck till I couldn't twist it anymore. Twisted it till her face looked like a plum. Then I bit her and tried to get back some of my fucking blood… Then I– _

"She put some of her spirit into the diamonds. It's not just the black magic, but a piece of her own soul as well."

"Like a horcrux?"

"… Exactly like a horcrux, Damon," she answered flatly, with a suppressed eye-roll.

"_And?"_

"And what?"

"_And _does this help us somehow? Does she have any advice? A hidden grimoire tucked away with a 'Kill Klaus' spell. An 'Anti-Hybrid' potion? Did she have anything relevant to contribute to the issue at hand? You said she 'spoke to you'," he used air-quotes there, "What about? A six hundred year old witch comes back from the dead to talk to you - anything relevant or just chit chat about how good I am in the sack? 'Cause I'm willing to give you a demonstration, if you're curious." He zoomed up to her, looming and trying his damn best to combine 'hot' and 'intimidating' into one smouldering look. He had her by the chin, used his thumb to smudge away a white trail of drying toothpaste... _Damn_… He'd had her right where he'd wanted her. Fifteen minutes ago that mouth had been ready to devour him but he'd been too chicken to make good on it. '_Carpe fucking diem, Damon. Carpe the fucking diem.' _He kissed her, too craven to go for a full kiss, he settled for the corner of her lips. "Threesome with Jeremy, threesome with a horcrux," he said against the side of her face, "Threesome with Stefan even. I'll be flexible. Just–"

"Klaus."

"What?" he stopped dead and pulled back. Or got pushed back.

Definitely, _pushed _back. He slammed into the wall, uncomfortably if not painfully.

"Klaus," she said again. "He's '_the Apocalypse Walking'. _We need his guts in order to do the resurrection spell."

"_What_?"

"We need Klaus' guts!" A mirror broke all on its own.

Stefan raced up the stairs at the noise and barged into the room. "Damon! You–" His brother, paused, one arm still on the doorknob. "Bonnie? Everything's–"

"Everything's peachy except we need Klaus' entrails in order to resurrect Geraldine," Bonnie snapped angrily. "Any ideas?"

"We ask him for it," Damon suggested.

"Hello Mr Klaus, can we have a handful of your intestines for a spell we're doing to resurrect a demon slayer to hunt you down? Pretty please?" Stefan mocked. "Something like that Damon?"

"I wouldn't know what he likes. You're the one he kidnapped."

"Implying?"

Damon shrugged, "I'm just saying. He kidnapped you. Then he released you. Things can't be as bad between the two of you as all that."

"Yeah, Damon. We're tight. We're real buds. He's like a brother to me."

…

The two brothers remained in the bathroom for a while. Bonnie'd marched out and they were supposed to have followed, but they'd lingered. Damon propped against the wall where he'd been flung like a sack of refuse earlier and Stefan in the doorway, as proud and perfect as ever.

"Well, congratulations," he said, blocking the way of escape. "I mean, this is vaguely somewhere in the territory of what you wanted, right?"

"You figure?"

"Yeah!" Stefan shifted his frame casually and feigned pensiveness, creasing his forehead just to be annoying. "I mean," he hitched up his eyebrows. "Apart from the lack of fire and sprinklers going off, you almost got exactly what you wanted!"

"I'll admit to certain flaws in the plan. Satisfied, Stefan?"

"Flaws? What flaws? It's working out flawlessly as far as I can see."

"The good part, though–"

"The _better_ part, you mean."

"The better part," he said straightening himself, "is that she's strong as fuck. If there's anyone who's at the moment capable of disemboweling Klaus, it's her. Mags might have been a depraved psychobitch, but she could work the fuck out of her black magic. If she's going to team up with Bonnie, then that's better for us. The odds rise in our favour."

"And you get to resume your sado-masochistic lifestyle in the meanwhile… Win-win for you."

"No! Do I look like I enjoy getting my eyes gouged out?"

Stefan didn't answer.

"Well, I don't. Despite the evidence, brother, I have limits. If I want abuse, I can go find Katherine. I have a new plan."

"A new plan? Why? The last one was genius."

"Okay! Noted! Now listen - the chain's a horcrux."

"A what?"

"Horcrux? Harry Potter?"

"You read that?"

"Have you not?"

"No," he shook his head and looked off. "As it's marketed for children, I, being a century and a half too old to qualify, decided against it. But I can see how it would appeal to you… Go on. The talisman does what?"

"It has a piece of Mag's consciousness in it. It's not an actual possession. But she and Bonnie can communicate!"

"And we're excited about this because…"

"Because we are _this_ close to having our very own black magic witch. All we have to do is keep feeding her blood and Mags'll do the rest. We resurrect Geraldine, Geraldine kills Klaus, _Bonnie _kills Geraldine afterwards. And we're all happy ever after. I'm looking out for _us_! Bonnie'll be _our_ bodyguard. No decent vampire goes anywhere without a badass, black magic wielding witch. Klaus has _two_. Bonnie needs all the help she can get. She needs to level up! We have to _guide_ her, _help _her access as much power as she possibly can."

"The fact that you include me in this disturbs me immensely."

"I'm going to mold her into the perfect witch."

"And this…_molding…_" Stefan waved his hands lethargically around.

"- Is going to involving blood-letting and sex, yes."

"Okay," Stefan sighed. "I agree. This is definitely a better idea. More perfect than the last one. We shove Bonnie down the slippery slope of black magic and hope she lands on her feet _and_ on our side. She's either going to lose all sense of morality and become your supernatural lover or end up EVIL AND INSANE and KILL YOU. Kill _all_ vampires, more precisely, including myself. At this point, I note that Bonnie's already coming into this with a massive hatred towards all our kind, but besides that… This is pure genius, Damon. There is no downside to this… None that _I _can see, at least. I cannot imagine this backfiring. Not at all. This is so genius I can smell it. I can _smell_ the genius on you. And oh… You still–" he pointed, rolled off some tissue, and wiped under Damon's chin, very brotherly-like. "She missed a spot."

* * *

><p><strong>And I must take a break... Tomorrow is Monday... Yay, yay, yay! Next update before Wednesday for the latest. A bonnie POV coming up to clarify the situation.<strong>


	7. Dust off my dancing shoes

It was a soft sound, halfway between a growl and a purr. A sound of either immense frustration or pleasurable contentment; as yet, he was undecided. The undying, immortal, heathen mishmash of supernatural power, known as _Klaus _by most, wiped the soap suds from his face and wriggled his fingers through the lather in his hair as he soaked himself. Then he held his breath and went under again. The water gurgled pass his ears, warm and soft, and he imagined himself being in a pond somewhere warm and tropical. The hard tile stopped him when he reached the bottom and he lay there, slowly letting the air out of his lungs. He didn't need it. He was as immune to drowning as he was immune to sunlight and silver and ashy daggers. As immune to it as he was immune to werewolf bites, vervain, cyanide, heartbreak, bad Chinese food, and anti-freeze.

Talk about moving up in the world. There'd been a time when he used to stub his toe. There was a time when a stub toe would have hurt. Brought tears to his eyes even. Now… Well, now he had vampires breaking into his rib cage and crushing his heart, all with not so much as a smart. Not so much as a stab. Just a tingle. Just a tickle.

There was nothing in the world that could kill him, and he was bored.

Not to say that he _needed _some menacing danger looming over his head, mind. Not to say that he _wanted_ to be hounded by a preachy puritan. Not to say that the hot breath of a hunter on the nape of his neck was a _psychological_ _prerequisite_ for his wellbeing.

Just that a slayer or two would have been nice.

And curtains.

They needed curtains. He traced his fingers through the mist on the glass. _Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, _he wrote. Then, _K__laus was here. Klaus is here. Klaus will always be here. Klaus is bored out of his fucking mind. I need to buy curtains. I need– _ He swiped his hands over it all, clearing the glass and revealing the view from his penthouse bathtub.

A very nice view of some city or other, he'd forgotten where exactly. Names had never been a strong suit for him, and he'd come to the conclusion a couple centuries back that names didn't matter at all. The world and all its places boiled down essentially to '_here'_ or '_there'_.

And there was always someone else about to take charge of all the pesky details, anyway. He'd had generations upon generations of servants. Big ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones, smart ones, idiotic ones, and even once an albino. Now he had Maddox and Greta. Two of the very best. If he could keep them around for a while, a century or two, three maybe… That'd be nice.

Maybe he was going a little above and beyond when it came to them. Maybe he was making the number one rookie mistake of all time and becoming _attached_. _Uughh_…

But good company was so hard to come by.

Maddox had been a pain up the backside to recruit for one thing. He'd tried cajoling, seducing, corrupting, haunting, stalking… In the end, they'd had to work it out via check book. One hundred thousand Euros per spell. Rather simple, and considering that money _did_ make the world turn, it should have been the first and most obvious way to go. The tally stood at… It was over ten million for sure, but Maddox wasn't pressing the issue of payment so much. Something about immortality made men less parsimonious.

Greta, well, she was another kettle of fish altogether. He'd done everything shy of offering free lollipops out the back of a panel van to get her. He'd had to wean her off daddy dearest. Wean her off little brother. Wean her off her whole fucking Dudley-Do-Right clan. Shepherd her out of Sweet Valley High, turn her down Temptation Boulevard and bait her into his arms.

"_Will you walk into my parlour?" _

He'd been the Spider, she the Fly, and she had walked in alright. Walked in and put down roots. Or laid eggs. Or _whatever_.

_Caution, old boy_. If he wasn't careful with her, he'd wake up some morning and find himself in some vile, twisted monogamous relationship. He'd have to find somebody else to fuck, and fast. Not a permanent somebody-else, of course, just a 'once or twice' somebody to remind his little hair-twirling witch that he was Klaus and he didn't do hand-holding, and cuddling, and love-making. He'd have to be cruel, especially cruel, and crush that affection in the bud.

Not that she'd ever threatened to hold his hand, thinking about it. In fact, he was hard pressed to remember the last time she'd even kissed him. She did what he asked her to do, disappeared or slept for half and then showed up to fuck him in the night. He could sum up their _situation_ just like that. Not the most sentimental of persons, her. Not one to confess undying devotion. And just as well.

He was Klaus, and he didn't do love.

Although, he supposed he could, if he particularly wanted to. Some time ago in the ancient past, he'd had an argument with his goodly brother Elijah on the dangers of love and heartfelt sentiment. But that was then. Back when he was a vampire and vulnerable to a host of vulnerabilities. Things had changed. He was immortal in the truest sense of the word. There was no one higher up on the bad guy food chain for her to betray him to. No one to use her as a hostage against him. No possible way for her to become a weakness. In theory, at least.

Someday, possibly soon, he'd have to put the newfound immortality of his minions to the test. They had his blood in them- topped up to the brim and overflowing. Maddox was a frequent feeder, and Greta certainly hadn't been shy with the use of her teeth on him, but still….

That little issue of them being witches and servants of nature and all that bullshit had potential to fuck everything up. Could they survive a heart-ripping, same as him? Could they survive a beheading? A staking? Or would the great almighty fucking balance decide against it? He didn't need balance. The witchcraft had served its function. He was free of the infernal ball and chain, sun and moon curse. That's all he'd ever wanted from _balance _and _nature _and _witchcraft_. He didn't need witches anymore. _Nature_ could fuck off now. _Nature_ could go and get buggered.

_Stop trying to correct every single thing I do! Stop trying to balance the scales every time I try to tip them in my favour. _

His fists curled. He was complete and immortal and still so fucking…

So fucking what?

Alone?

He was only alone for a moment though. Greta had gone fuck knows where for fuck knew what purpose, but she wasn't far. He could still smell her. If he called, she'd be there in a heartbeat stripping off her clothes and getting in the tub with him.

And Maddox? Maddox wasn't far at all. Just in the other room. He could hear him breathing. Hear the muscle-bound heart beating. If he pushed the point really far he could have the dude stripping out of his clothes and getting into the tub too.

_Aw_… he chuckled, slid back into the soapy water, and grinned foolishly as big balls of air escaped him adding to the bubbles. "_This is the neurosis that happens to all great men when they reach the pinnacle of their ambitions and start making stuff up just to kill time. Depression first, then paranoia, then I do something incredibly stupid just in time for the good guys to win."_

**...**

"You don't look too hot," he said as he pushed the door to Maddox's lair open. "In fact, you look positively… human. Is that a heartbeat I hear thundering?

The witch's eyes went black, his fangs came down, and just to make his point he pulled out the claws too. "Witch, Vampire, Werewolf - it takes some balancing," Maddox grunted, giving him a feeble nod of encouragement. "It's all good. I'm just trying something."

Trying something, indeed. The witch had his knife out, his ceremonial carving knife, and was heating it over a candle. The scent of burnt flesh was high and disgusting in the air.

Klaus lingered in the doorway, half curious and half… half whatever the _opposite_ of curious was. _Aghast, _maybe? He could ask a question, find out the particulars, but Maddox was a grown man. He didn't need some doddering hybrid pointing out that playing with knives was dangerous. "By the way this set-up here is less hygienic than a Guatemalan tattoo shop operating off a fishing barge, but…" he sighed, "I don't know if you've noticed, but the witch-bitch has put a spell on me."

"Greta?"

Huh. "No, the other one. The one we're going to kill? She-"

"How do you know? What kind of spell? Since when?"

_Got your attention now? _"Well, it doesn't fall within my range of expertise, but I'd go out on a limb and say it's either some kind of binding spell or a summoning spell. I've been getting this strange urge to go to Mystic Falls. I might almost say I feel _compelled _to go to her."

Maddox eyed him silently for a moment, thinking something, and flipped his knife over in the orange candle-flame. "Why would she do something like that?" he asked softly, more to himself. "You think she figured out that you're the last ingredient?"

"I'd wager heftily on it."

"But why try to summon you? I mean, she's not retarded, far as we know. She's bitchy, but not retarded."

"If I say that I'm intrigued it won't be a lie. I've been thinking-"

Maddox sighed.

"I've been thinking that maybe we've been approaching this from the wrong angle. I mean, what's our main problem? The Mystic Falls Salvation Army Trio, right? If we disrupt the Trio, we win. We don't necessarily have to kill anyone. I have a certain fondness for Steff-Steff and the witch-bitch can be… molded…to our way. The only thing better than having two witches at your beck and call is having three witches at your beck and call. Three's a lucky number, and I want three. She'll fit in marvellously well with us. It'll be as if I adopted a kid. Like a younger sister for you and-"

"I'm going to interject right here," Maddox set the knife down. Planted the tip in the wood of his desk with a solid _thunk_. "How do you intend to sway her over? Hmm?"

"This isn't my first prom, Maddy. I could sway a nun, if I had too. If Buffy were a real person, I'd be able to sway her to our side. I'd make her 'Buffy, the Human Slayer'."

"Klaus…" Maddox wrinkled his brow, "I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but you're not as good-looking as you think you are. You're hot, but not _that _hot. You're _not_ the smoothest talker on the block either. I've seen your game-plan in action. It's basically '_hello, my name is Klaus, I have a fancy accent. I might be rich - you don't know - and I want to have sex with you. How 'bout it?'_

"It works."

"Does it? Does it really? You've had three run-ins with the bitch so far. One at a school dance where you tried to kill each other. The second time at the ceremony where she really put her back into it. And a couple of days ago when you amputated the boyfriend. She's on a _mission_ to disembowel you-"

"As you mention it, how does that even work?" Klaus sauntered into the room taking a good look around, not missing the couple of corpses bundled up in a corner, not missing the congealed puddle of blood in the other, not missing a curious splatter pattern on the bed-sheets. "While it's flattering to be dubbed _'The Apocalypse Walking'_, I have some concerns about the gut removal part. When it says '_guts', w_hat does that mean specifically? Something small like a biopsy? Or a real _gutting – _abattoir style?"

"I assume it's an abattoir style gutting. I think that's what we're working with."

"Okay then, here's what we do. I don't want to risk losing my entrails but at the same time I don't want to waste a good witch. Let me try my thing first. Seduce her to the dark side, if you will. And if she spits in my face, then we kill her."

"Or I could get in a cab, go to Mystic Falls and kill the bitch while she's tucked in tight."

"But where's the fun in that?"

"It'll be fun."

"Where's the fun in that _for_ _me?_ You and Greta do everything. I don't even hunt my own meals again. I need the exercise or I'll get fat. You won't like me fat, Maddy."

"What's the point of having super side-kicks if you still end up doing all the work yourself?"

_True. _"But-"

"Okay…" Maddox heaved resignedly and wiped his face in his hands. "I wasn't going to tell you about it, but I have a way to expedite our killing of the bitch."

"Hmm?"

"Yeah, something I've been working on. Well, me and the witch-bitch-"

"I'm not following. Greta?"

"Greta. Me and Greta. We have the cousin of the – Bonnie's cousin – Lucinda or some shit. We have her in a house in Calebrook, and Greta's going to possess her, worm her way in to the clan, get close to the cousin, meaning Bonnie, and then neck snapping time."

"That's a pretty solid plan… Except…"

"Except what?"

"Except, I want to do it."

"Do what?"

"The possession. Big duh. Stay on point, Madd."

"You want to possess the cousin."

"If anyone deserves the action, it's me. I've been holed up here since forever."

"The female cousin. You want to possess the female cousin? You think you'd be able to do that more convincingly than Greta?"

"Greta has the social personality of a Nazi. A Nazi terrorist, in fact. Worming into cliques isn't her thing. They'd spot her in an instant. This falls right up my alley. I've got the pizzazz, the sly cunning, the subtle sex appeal… I _love_ undercover work. Really. It keeps me young."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hey, before Wednesday by half hour. Thanks for the reviews and the reads everybody! The plot just exploded in my head, so I had to take a pause moment to get it straight. A subdued Klaus introspection chapter just to set the groundwork for him so he doesn't come off as <strong>_**too**_** crazy of a bastard later down. A Bonnie chap next, for 90% sure. **


	8. Unholy Vespers

"_Look at him,"_ the voice whispered softly.

Bonnie sighed. It had not taken long to get accustomed to it, that dry, cracking, hoarse voice that came vaguely from somewhere in the back half of her head. It was like having an extra, louder, evil conscience. Like how it would be if the little red devil on her shoulder was real and if it had turned into a talking worm and climbed into her ear. Just as annoying, just as relentless, just as repugnant, and just as useful. She looked up and found the object of Mags' interest. Damon.

Of course.

He was sitting on the windowsill, with his feet bare, one pressed against the glass and the other dangling loose and lazy. The sun was shining in on him, brightly. It shone off his hair, off his skin, made his lips seem almost redder, made his eyes seem…

"_He has nice eyes. I'd confess that." _She sighed again and refocused her attention on the beat-up yellow paged notebook. Mags' notebook, found in the bottom of a box in the least used corner of the Salvatore library. Damon had kept the witches things. Most of them, he'd boxed. The rest, he'd buried. Or so Mags suspected. Besides her chain of talismanic diamonds, there was an assorted array of witchy paraphernalia lying around unused somewhere: a ring, a ruby, a bag of bones she'd collected from various animals and you know… general knick-knacks. She was copying over spells from the old thing, typing them up on her laptop. Then… Well, then she was going to put it on her phone. File them under _notes_. Stupid in theory, but practical. What if someday, she was in the mall and Elena was back at her house and under attack? She'd have to teleport, right? No time for a clunky grimoire…

"_He's perfect."_

Bonnie didn't respond to that. She thought she'd seen it all when it came to unhealthy relationships. 8 hours a day in the Salvatore house had exposed her to all different forms of twisted. Chief among them the on-going love square with Katherine, Elena and the two vampires. She herself had ended up in a love square, disregarding the fact that two of its members were dead. Jeremy, the safest of all safes, the straight guy of any romantic comedy, was haunted by his two dead girlfriends. Both of them former vampires. Anna, she'd had a hand in killing, and Vicki… Well, the two of them had never been friends, really. Vicki being a stoner and a borderline prostitute, despite the fact that at one point in time she and Elena had been destined to be sisters-in-law…

But Mags took the cake.

It was beyond her ability to understand how any self-respecting woman could be so utterly pitiful. It was solid fact that Damon had throttled her to death with her necklace while they were… being intimate. It was solid fact that even while they'd both been alive and kicking, (she alive, him undead ), their relationship hadn't been based on open trust, and strong mutual affection. The picture she was getting was less Mags Homemaker and more Mags Dominatrix. She'd had what could be called a working contract with Damon where he'd supply the blood she needed to keep herself at her optimal power and she was to provide the know-how to emancipate Katherine, the lady of love and beauty. Along the way, Mags had gotten side-tracked. Sloppy. She'd started the collaboration based on a need for the blood and lost herself horribly in the Damon. _The Damon._ How? Who knew, but Damon had worked a number on the powerful woman. Damon, lethal even to succubi. DEspire being strong on the blood of countless werewolves and vampires, Damon had slimed his way through the woman's defences and reduced her to a phantom voice in a necklace.

He was drinking something. Wine… No not wine. Why would she ever think wine? Blood. Out of a wine glass with a straw. So Damon. He was watching something in the sky, a cloud or something, the book in his lap forgotten and threatening to topple down to the ground. He had his fingers on the paper, resting ever so lightly and Bonnie wondered if the fingers would rest so lightly on _her_ skin…

"_Stop it! I told you to stop doing that!"_

Bonnie sucked in a mouthful of air and shook her head clear of the Damon fog. She would have to be careful. The fantasies were subtler now. Barely noticeable really, until that warmth started to blossom… _down there_. Then she'd snap out of it. Her time for crushing on a vampire had come and gone. There'd been a brief infatuation type thing with Stefan, but that had died off pretty fast. What, with his eternal, unending, stalkerish love for Elena. And even that had been a _clean, wholsesome_ kind of infatuation, not so much lusting and gyrating and…

She would have to be careful. Two nights in a row now she'd waken up with her fingers… _down there_… and moaning Damon's name into her was not to be trusted. Her obsession with Damon had become paramount at that point where she'd died in his arms, his lips still on hers, his _thing _still inside of her … You'd think she'd hold a grudge over that. And she did, in a small, trivial kinda way. She still wanted sex with him, just angrier sex.

"_He's the perfect specimen," M_ags pressed.

_"Prefect specimen for what?"_ Bonnie allowed, frowning down at the faint, faint, writing, and trying to decide if a letter was an _e_ or a _c_. _"I'm not doing the blood-drinking make-out thing again. I'm serious."_

"_Admit it; you're stronger with the blood. The spells are easier now, aren't they? Easier to memorise? Easier to get right? It's becoming second nature to you."_

"_It helps, yes. But I'm not doing that again."_

"_You shouldn't be afraid of him."_

Ha! Bonnie snorted out an ungainly laugh. Damon didn't move. Whatever it was that had caught his attention out the window held him still. Thankfully. _"I'm not afraid of him! He's like… He's like… I just don't like him!"_

"_Impossible."_

"_What's impossible? That I'm immune to his eyebrow thing, and the smirk, and the eyes, and the body, and the fingers, and the toes, and the belly hair and the V-line, and the abs, and the fingertips… Yes, I have the list memorised and I'm immune to everything on it."_

"_Impossible."_

"_It's impossible to not be in love with Damon Salvatore?"_

Mags scoffed. Somehow effectively, even without a facial expression. "_Not love, child. Damon's not the man you fall in love with. He's been on this planet for near two centuries and up until now no one's come out to claim owner's rights on him. What's that tell you? He's like a library book – borrow it, sleep on it, rip out some pages and hand it back in before you have to pay the fine."_

"_What happens when you're overdue? Get choked to death?"_

That shut her up for a while and gave Bonnie the chance to concentrate. Just a little chance. Five minutes later Mags was back again. She wasn't normally so hard to subdue, but Damon's proximity had her all… hot and antsy.

"_He's so easy to manipulate, Bonnie. He's a puppet begging for someone to pull his strings. Just look at him. Forget black cats, he's the perfect familiar. Don't think of him as a lover. Humans are lovers. Things like him… There just meant to be used by people like us. Use him!"_

"_For what?"_ He wasn't looking particularly useful right then, just staring out the window like the brain-dead jerkass she knew he was. _Him?_ Easily manipulated? By Katherine, Elena and other unknown clones of Katherine, maybe. Not by her. Their fingers-crossed truce was as good as they'd get. He was helpful enough with gathering the items. Who else in the group was willing to break in the local zoo and cut out the tongue of a tiger? Or dig around in a cobra to find a heart? He'd gotten the ash. In two hours he'd be on a plane to Belfast to gouge out someone's eye. And while he was there, he'd cut off someone's ring-finger too. And he'd more or less volunteered to make the first go at tackling Elijah for the sword. Of course, he was only so helpful because of his vested interest in seeing Klaus dead… Still, a welcome reprise from Jeremy and Elena and Caroline and Tyler… And he hadn't made too much of a joke of her attacking him that night, either. There'd been two winks, some heavy smirking, some suggestive language and a half kiss – he'd been a relative gentleman about it. _"I want to try the teleporting spell."_

"_You need blood for that. That's black magic through and through."_

"_Why, though? It's not like I want to teleport to hell." _

"_I shrug my shoulders."_

God, she wanted the blood! Not for the taste of it, or the sick thrill of actually sucking it out. Just the strength in in. _That's all._ The power. 100 dead witches were all fine and good, but she was still the underdog. Maddox had her beat for one thing, and Klaus had another one up his sleeve. She needed more. She needed Mags. And she needed vampire blood. "_How much blood?"_

"_Enough."_

"_Can't I drink it from a glass or something?"_

"_I've never done otherwise."_

"_I'm shocked."_

"_I never had fangs."_

"_Oh."_

"_But I like how you improvised. A telekinetic crushing of the windpipe and a French kiss. Wished I'd thought of that."_

"_You did. That was all you."_

"_Wished I'd thought of it while I was still alive and had my own tongue."_

"_Oh. But anyhow, Vampire blood works any way I take it, right?"_

"_More or less."_

"_Regardless of who the vampire is, right? I mean, I can get the blood from Stefan, can't I? I can explain the situation to Stefan, and he'll fill out a bag. He'll be more understanding than Damon, and I won't have to deal with your weird unresolved… thing." _

"_Stefan?"_

"_The good brother. He's better."_

"_He's not–"_

"_He's not Damon, but he's _better_." _Bonnie sighed, then grinned. The answer had been staring her right in the face. Chucking the chain out a moving car would be the easiest way to deal with Mags and her Damon issue. But that way she'd be missing out on a golden opportunity. She was so close to true blue power she could feel it and smell it.

"_Damon smells like the Egyptian cotton sheets he sleeps in…"_

"_Shut up!"_

And Stefan would be easier to deal with. Definitely. He'd be like – _sure, no problem Bonnie. Anytime. _Stefan was the good one. Stefan was the better one. "Damon…"

He didn't respond, lost in his own world.

If at first you don't succeed… "Damon?"

"Hm?" He slid off the windowsill and drifted across the room to her, the lazy, redolent pout of his lips almost… "What does the witch want with me?"

"I…" She pushed the notebook off her phone and held it up for him. "New phone," she beamed, grinned as innocently as she could manage. It was. Her first iPhone. A lot of nice Apps… Touchscreen… "I haven't had a chance yet to transfer my contacts. Can you give me Stefan's number? I need to ask him something."

"Sure!" he nodded and plucked the phone out of her grasp. Then he hurled it to the wall.

It shattered.

He bit his bottom lip. "Damn butterfingers."

**AN: YAY! Fan fic writing is fun. If I write a thousand more, I'll make a portfolio and apply to CW and destroy Delena. Joke. I was team Delena till I read the books and then I got converted in the bath-tub scene and the next scene with Matt? (Mutt). Then it was Bamon forever. Or Steffonnie - They were so cute in S1.**


	9. Got nothing on you, babe

**AN: Sorry for the time delay. Life interrupts with its duties and various tediums. If anybody's still reading this, I can probably forewarn you to just let it build up a little. And read it four chapters at a time or something for maximum story benefit, otherwise it might get confusing. Sorry. First time trying to write something and no real practise in plot structuring. Sorry, seriously. I have four other chapters written, one I have to send to the recycle bin, and 3 that don't really fit anywhere now… Tchh.**

**For this chapter's opening half, think that scene from "What Lies Beneath" where Pfeiffer goes evil and seductive. That's what I was thinking, at least. I now realise why Bamon is so hard to write and keep people in character. The Bonnie I'm trying to get is mostly the one that drugged? and tried to mindf—k Luka. The half-bitchy-half cute badass version.**

* * *

><p>"Bonnie?"<p>

_Fuucckkk…. _She groaned, rolled, snuggled in deeper, pressed her face into the bed and tried to fill her lungs with his scent. She shut her eyes, tight, tighter, and waited to fall back into her fluffy, pink dreamland. Her steamy, hot dreamland. Her sweaty, sexy dreamland… One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats and fuck, she was awake. _"It's just Stefan," _Mags cooed, _"Not important. Go back to sleep. You need the rest. Go back to–"_

"Bonnie." He wasn't asking now. He knew she was awake and he needed something, probably. Wanted her to do something. Wanted her to bring somebody back from the dead, or make a ring for yet another vampire, or– "_Use a tracking spell to help him find his toothbrush. Or find Elena's toothbrush. Elena needs somebody to wipe the snot from her nose. Your turn. Go help Elena with the toilet paper. They need somebody to put their shit on. You don't mind a little shit, do you?" _

"Yeah?" She answered but her voice was muffled. Muffled in the softest, softest of pillows, oh so feathery smooth against her cheek, like baby skin. Feathery. Expensive… Her throat hurt though; it was raspy… and hoarse... as if she'd been screaming…

"Jeremy needs–"

"What?" she sat up, the covers and sheets tumbled away. The cold, late summer air assaulted and offended her, making her mood just a little bit worse. The bright light was jarring, even though the drapes did their best to fight it off. Her head hurt. Her stomach growled; she was hungry, insatiable… As she turned away from the window she could swear her brain was a dented marble rattling free and loose. It hurt so much. It hurt worse than a hangover. Worse than the time she'd had that cavity when she was six. Worse than the time her father had backed his pick-up truck over her foot. _No…_ It hurt just about that much… as if someone had accidentally backed a pick-up truck over her head. "What does Jeremy need?" she asked, adrift behind the red shadow of her eyelids. "A bottle of expressed breastmilk? I'm not lactating at the moment."

"Bonnie?"

"What, Stefan?" she sighed finally opening her eyes. _Stefan… muscle tee, jeans…_ She'd been meaning to ask him something. Something doubtlessly unimportant, because she couldn't remember what at all. Something stupid probably, like who did his hair? Or something like- "Hey, when did you get back?"

"You don't remember me coming back?" he asked, doing his sexy version of a frown. He was worried, she could tell. He only combined the 'half-squint' and 'arm-fold' when he was worried. "You don't remember the two-headed shark?" He pulled out a little vial with probably a millilitre of blood in it. "The half-digested baby cow in the stomach? We put the heart in the blender and then sieved it– how can you not remember that? I'll remember that if I live to be a thousand. Two thousand even, and… you're looking at me as if I'm talking about a unicorn. You seriously can't remember anything at all about it?"

_Hmmm? _It was all so vague. "Kinda, but not really." Why was it so cold? Her legs were wet. Sticky, almost. And… "Where's Damon?" _Damon. Damon. Damon. Damon. Damon is missing. _"Is he back yet? Where's Damon? Bring me Damon!"

"Bonnie…"

Where was he? He'd been with her just minutes ago, hadn't he? He'd been between her legs just seconds ago, hadn't he? Where was he? _Where am I? Who– _

"He still in Europe," Stefan interrupted. "He got the finger and the eye. He's going after Elijah and gonna try to be stealthy and _steal_ the sword… I don't know what Damon understands by the word "stealthy" though, so he might actually just be dead…"

"No!" Somebody smashed a window. Pieces of shattered glass floated slowly through the air, looking pretty. "I need him."

"Think about what you're saying."

"I want his blood to try the teleporting thing."

"No, that's not something you should–"

"Can I have yours, then?"

Oh. His face somersaulted, then he frowned harder than ever before. He frowned so hard…

_Make it stick like that._

"It's nothing too major, Stefan," she said, smiling for a reason unknown to her. A slimy smile. She could tell it was slimy and she didn't even have to look at it. "Slit your wrist over a cup, bleed for five minutes - give or take. That's all. I won't be… _indecent_."

One of his eyebrows shot up, and his mouth twitched. Annoyed? Something else? His eyes swept over her, then diverted to a painting on the wall. Some stupid countryside painting… "I'm not getting in the middle of this thing with you and Damon and the… trade of body fluids... If you ask Caroline, I'm sure–"

"If I have to feed on Caroline I might as well go to the source and start biting down on the Easter Bunnies with you." _Harsh. _"Caroline's blood is diet coke compared to yours and you know it. I need ripper blood. I thought you were supposed to be the real ripper?" she tilted her neck and let the hair fall down her naked back… "Rip something." Moving almost on its own power, her hand reached out from under the sheet and she hooked a finger in the waistband of the vampire's jeans… pulled him closer… "Rip something, Stefan."

"Okay… I'm gonna–" He swivelled out of her grip.

"_Damn. Just break his feet or something. How bout we slit his throat over the tub? That'll work. Then we burn him to dust…"_

"_Damon might mind, though."_

"_Let's just set him on fire. No evidence. We'll sweep out the ashes."_

And a slight sting of smoke in her nostrils–

"Bonnie!" Stefan shouted in her ear.

He'd slapped her too. At least it felt like that. She was spinning. Or the world was spinning and she was the only thing standing still. Down was up, up was down. There was vomit in her throat–

"Bonnie!" he shouted again, louder, if that was possible. "Snap out of it!"

_Snap out of what? _"…what?"

"What day is it today?"

_Well, shit._

"Whose room is this, Bonnie? Try to think. Look around you. Where are you right now?"

_Shit…_

"Snap out of it! Focus! Think!"

_No fucking way..._

"What happened to your clothes, Bonnie? Explain to me what's going on."

* * *

><p>He passed her a tissue with a mocking, teasing grin. "It's not <em>that<em> bad. It's the Damon effect. You are not the first girl to wake up lost, naked and confused in Damon's bed–"

"Not helping," she said between sniffles.

"I know, but if you can't laugh about it…"

There wasn't anything to laugh about.

"Come on, technically you were compelled. In an indirect kinda way. He gave you the necklace to break you down to this! He's played this whole thing out in his head, though I guess he figured that this strip-down would have happened sometime while he was around. Didn't count on being miles and miles away…"

"I want to die."

"Why?" Stefan shrugged, being ever so casual. "Because you locked yourself in my brother's bedroom while he was away, took your clothes off, or burnt them off as I'm gathering from the ash, and lost yourself in a sexual fantasy for two days? It's not a big deal. A little embarrassing, maybe–"

"Two whole days?" The last thing she remembered was… Damon had broken her phone. Then she'd given him a micro aneurysm. Then he'd kissed her. Then she'd given him a macro aneurysm. Then he'd left for his flight. Then she'd tested her version of the teleporting spell on an actual Guinea pig and it had exploded on her in a rain of fur, blood and rodent guts. Then she'd gone to the guest bathroom to have a shower… dropped the soap and stepped on it… slipped… hit her head.

And voila. Two day masturbatory sojourn in Damon's bed. All expenses paid, courtesy the ever gracious Red Magwyr.

Good old aunty Mags, always looking out for her.

She'd stripped herself of every shred of clothing except the damn necklace. Totally shocking, that. Her fingers toyed with the pendants disgustedly. She should throw it into the ocean. Or not even there, where some underwater explorer was like to find it. She should throw it down a sewer. She should throw it into an aluminium smelter pot. Or a plasma changer. Better yet, she should hang herself with it. "What's your stand on euthanasia?"

"Come on? So you had a two day sabbatical. Big deal!"

"It's a big fucking deal!" "There is NO way out of this! He's going to _smell _me in here when he comes back! He's a vampire with super smell–" Bonnie cringed and pulled the sheets tighter around herself. _Die, die, die, die… _Could her heart just stop? Was that too much to ask? Would she ever be able to look Stefan in the eyes again? _Ever_? Would she ever be able to look herself in the eyes again? Would she ever be able to look _anyone_ in the eyes ever again? Or would they see through her? All her vainglorious, blowhard morality shit… They'd see what she'd done and laugh. _Or cry. _They'd pity her, probably. Little as she deserved it…

Best someone dig out her eyes. And cut off her fingers too, while they were at it. Not Stefan, someone else. A butcher or somebody with experience cutting off fingers and gouging out eyes. A war vet or something.

Or Klaus. Klaus would do it for her. Forget the Geraldine spell and all that bullshit. She'd let Klaus poke her eyes out and chop off her fingers.

Or kill her. That would be simplest. Kill her and throw her disgusting carcass in an unmarked grave. Or open well. If she did nothing but wait for him, he'd come and kill her. For sure. He'd kill them all.

"You're overreacting," Stefan continued saying, in a way that was supposed to be consoling. She was not consoled. "What you did is a normal part of the reaction to the hormonal changes that you're going through," he continued, looking somewhere over her shoulder. "Sexual… urges are a healthy part of… Okay, I'm not having the conversation with you. I'm too old and yet not old enough. The level of awkward is too high. But the point is– The point is–" his eyes caught on the curtain blowing through the window she'd broke. "The point is that you now finally realise on your own that this symbiosis thing you have going on with Magwyr is dangerous. You're a witch. Witches don't slip in the shower and crack their skulls. This time you lost two days. Next time she tries something, it could be a week. And who know what you do. Who you… attack…"

"Sorry."

"No…" Stefan pulled his legs up under him Indian style. He'd make a good boy-scout commander-leader. He'd totally rock the shit out of sitting Indian style at a campsite fire. "You don't have to apologize–"

"I'm so ashamed of myself. I'm at rock bottom."

"I'm your '_rock_-_bottom'_? Of all the people who could have come through that door? Think Tyler. Think… Think Alaric."

Well, yes… Alaric would have been worse.

"And besides, it's not like you were taking a crap or something eww. The whole 'naked witch-girl in a bed-sheet' routine was hot. Like _super_ hot. If I wasn't crazy in love with Elena, I'd be totally cool with being your vampire blood-stud. You sell it very well. It's like – _I'm gonna bleed your bone marrow dry, but in the most erotic way possible. You won't even notice."_

Bonnie sniffed, and pulled the sheets, _his _sheets tighter around her. "You're a good friend, Stefan. Like a guidance counsellor."

"But more dead, supernaturally reanimated, and better looking."

"Yeah."

"You see how I omitted the 'I told you so' part in all this? I'm the kind of good friend who's not going to rub your face in it. A bad friend might use the moment to try to blackmail you into giving up the talisman. A bad friend would say something like 'give me the cursed talisman, or else'."

"And I'd ask 'or else what?'" Whatever Mags had done, she was still only a figment of a consciousness trapped in a piece of jewellery. She'd made her slip in the bathroom, or she may not have. That was all up in the air. Either way, no real harm had been done. She might have a concussion, but besides that she was okay. And so what if she'd had a…a… a spaz moment where she'd not been one hundred per cent control of her bodily functions? Who cares? "Or else what?"

"I actually have no follow up for that," he smiled. "I really just want you to go back to being the normal, not-brainwashed Bonnie that we're all accustomed to. If it's so hard for you to realise what this is doing to you, even after... everything, then I–"

"Open the door, Bonnie!"

Jeremy. Fuck.

Stefan used that single moment of distraction to make a grab for the chain. He came probably within an inch of her, half inch tops, before she levelled him with an aneurysm.

And… fuck. Stefan flopped over backwards and landed on the floor with a thud.

What to do?

She couldn't go out.

She couldn't let them come in either; she didn't have clothes. Damon's clothes would be there somewhere…in the wardrobe-looking thing. She could borrow something… except she really, really, really, really, really, really didn't want to.

"Just open the door!" Jeremy shouted, rattling the wood.

"Or I'll break it down!" Caroline, too. Recently, the used to be cheerleader was getting off on acting the bouncer. One good aneurism, could cure that…

"_Taking orders now, from the Gilbert prince?"_

"_Shut up, Mags." _Stefan was out cold. Not looking likely to come around any time soon. She'd never been able to do that before – K.O. a vampire. "_Help me, Mags. This is your fault. You know it's your fault. Help me or I flush you down the toilet. I swear, I'll flush you."_

"_You wouldn't. You need me for the spell."_

"_What spell? Geraldine? I fucking care about that now? I'm naked in Damon's bed. The only upside to this is that he's not in the country. I'm supposed to be working on Geraldine, but now I'll have to wash all his sheets, and vacuum the place. And deodorize it. And all that's after I Lysol my hands. And shampoo his carpets. You're a sick, fucking woman, Mags. A sick, fucking woman."_

The door rattled.

"Bonnie. One minute and I break this door down? All right?" Caroline.

"Whatever the problem is, you can tell us." Elena. Then, "What did you do to Stefan, Bonnie? There was glass breaking. And Tyler said he saw smoke coming through the window."

"_Mags!"_

"_Flush me then. See what I care. I'm dead, remember?"_

"_I fucking swear, Mags! I will flush you into the sewage system."_

"_Good luck teleporting on your own. Thirty forty rats down the road, you might make some progress."_

"_Just show it to me. Teach me the spell and I forgive you 100%"_

"_You'll need Stefan's blood."_

No sooner said than done. The number one use of telekinesis – floating feathers. The number two use – slitting open vampire veins.

It was very different, bleeding Stefan. She could almost taste the rabbit fur. Hint of moose. Essence of racoon. By two mouthfuls, she'd had her fill. So much for the ripper, pale and unconscious, he actually looked like a high school student. Good and innocent… and molested, but anyway… Whatever.

No time for guilt.

She had two choices – disappear into thin air or aneurism everybody, human, vampire, ghost whisperer, werewolf, everybody. "Okay, Mags. Let's do this. Teleport. Take me home."

* * *

><p><em>And this isn't home. This is like the opposite of home. <em>

Somebody was talking to her, but her eyes couldn't adjust, the room was too dark. There was piano music playing somewhere, and a chandelier flickering on low. A soft murmur of clinking dishes and voices. The smell of food. "Ma'am… Miss… There's a dress code, miss."

And… she was in a restaurant. she was still wrapped up in the fucking bed sheet. Fuck. "_Mags, for the sweet love–"_

"… dress code, Ma'am!"

Then it came.

She felt the smirk before she saw it.

_And it's in the ceiling fan now_.

"Hey, Damon." He was sitting right there in front of her. Elijah, too. The two of them, at a table seated like gentlemen. A white, fake-looking classic medieval sword set between their empty dishes.

Damon didn't respond. He just sat there, frozen.

"Okay…" Elijah, put down the cup of tea he'd had to his lips. "Consider me and my interest piqued."


	10. My day job bites ass

'Being a teacher sucks,' Alaric thought as he turned the corner onto _that _street and heard the ghastly screeching of another bearing going bad in his beat-up, piece of shit car. A disgusting wind blew through the passenger window, scattering the hundreds, no thousands, of essays he had yet to read, correct and grade. The principal was being a real dick-crusher, making them adopt some so-called "proper" marking scheme that he'd pulled out of his ass... _along with his brain_. Gone were the sweet, succulent days when he could put an "F" on a paper just by the penmanship alone. He'd have to read them all now, and high-school students, it turned out, were even worse at basic English than they were at History. 'Being a teacher sucks, but being a history teacher sucks worst of all.'

Or probably not. Being the English teacher would be worse… Poor Kubrick. Someday there'd be a reckoning and some concerned parent would have his head on a silver serving tray. If the dick-crusher had his way, the day was well drawing nigh.

Poor fucking Kubrick. Boo fucking hoo. Did Kubrick ever get possessed by a vampire-werewolf thing? No. Did Kubrick's wife up and leave him to become a vampire? Did Kubrick's wife have a secret love-child with some asshole with an accent? Did Kubrick end up playing godfather for said secret love-child? Was Kubrick pulling double duty acting as a Noble Guardian of Mystic Falls? No. So fuck Kubrick.

Poor fucking Kubrick was head of the English department, and got a nice little bonus out of that. A good enough bonus to afford him them stupid-ass hair plugs, at least.

Alaric glimpsed his hairline in the review mirror. At least he had his hair. He might not have money, but he had his hair. Not a grey in sight. Thank you very much. Give Damon a chance, though, and he'd be bald by December. The stress. The acid reflux. The skipped meals. The possessions. The general anxiety… all of it was getting to be a bit much… He'd be bald, with an ulcer and a twitch under the eye by December.

_I need a vacation._

_I'd go on one if I wasn't a fucking history teacher. Whose fucking idea had that even been – a fucking BA in History? When I signed up for that, what the fuck did I think was going to happen?_

As if anybody in Mystic Falls needed History. As if they needed anything besides knowing how to count up to ten and sign their names. It wasn't exactly the breeding ground of novel prize winners. Not much going on in the way of libraries. They had _one restaurant. One_ mall. _One_ grocery. _One_ market. _One _cinema. _One_ park. _One_ restroom in the staff room… One of fucking everything. As hick a town as a town could get without actually having hicks in it. The people _knew_ better… they just couldn't help themselves it seemed. Couldn't resist the idea of parades and open-air movie nights and retarded shit like Founder's Day and Tea Parties and Costume Parties and Costume Dances and… _The list goes on and fucking on…_

_Why in the fucking name of sanity am I still here? _

He'd come to track down Isobel and stayed for what?

_Jenna?_

She was dead and gone now. Dead and gone for a couple of weeks well. Well, not that many weeks… but he was dealing with the grief pretty well. He should be losing it a little probably, but lose one woman to vampirism and you kinda get accustomed to it. In a sick kinda way, he'd sort of _expected _Jenna to become a vampire… _Huh_. Interesting, but he could ponder his psychiatric issues in any other state in any other continent; why grow moss in Mystic Falls?

_Elena?_

Who in fuck's name was Elena? Why should _he_ care? Why should he risk his life for her? Why was he playing guardian and happy house-maker?

_Am I possessed by some fucking desperate housewife?_

_What the general fuck? _

He was having an epiphany, he realised and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. 'This is it,' he thought, 'Keep driving.' _Go straight home. Pack a bag– No, fuck that. Don't bother going home, keep driving all the way to the airport; get your fucking cunt out of Mystic Falls and never fucking ever return.'_

He mashed down on the gas, heard his engine sputter and crank out more juice. _Don't even bother going to the airport. You're poor as shit. Just hit the highway and drive till you run out of road or gas. You have enough in your wallet for the fucking gas, right? Just drive. _He mashed again, and the cup of half-cold coffee in the holder spilled. _And who the fuck cares? Don't stop unless there's a moat of lava stopping you… And there very well might be, so look out for that… Look out for the lava. The motherfucking lava…_

An old woman or old man (whatever) was crossing the road about quarter mile down the road and he sped up some more. _Move bitch, _he laughed in a sick, high pitched voice that sounded batshitty even to his own ears. _Move or I fucking run you over. I'm a teacher. _

If he hit her, he'd _have_ to leave. He'd have to flee the law and probably head down to Mexico. Then he'd peruse the globe at his leisure until he could find a third world country with a currency exchange rate that would allow him to live like a king on the remnants of his scratchy salary… About fifty bucks. Less after he put in gas.

_If you do kill her, rob her. You'll need the gas money. _He mashed down a little bit harder. That got him up to eighty miles per hour. _Should do the trick… You'll at least fracture her hip. And you can still rob her after. And the police will still come after you so everything still works out fine…_

_Say twenty-five bucks… _Twenty five US dollars would be like twenty-five million yen in Japan, but a cheese sandwich over there was upwards of thirty million yen, so there was that…

Maybe Brazil. He could get into the cocaine business. Some shipping and handling… He'd be good at that…

The old woman (it turned out to be a woman) finished crossing the road before he could reach her.

Damn his luck.

It was never good for anything. Who else in the world could say that both his wife and girlfriend turned in to vampires and died? His luck was the bad, morbidly ironic kind. Ten, twenty years down the road, the grandkid of the old woman would probably run him over. Or maybe the grandkid would be the leader of the Brazilian underground and kill him before he even got started in that entrepreneurship. Or the old woman would turn out to be Elena's grandmother. Some older generation of doppelganger whose death by vehicular homicide was prophesied in a fake prophecy ten thousand years ago. Shit like that happened every day of the week. Shit like–

Well, it wasn't lava… as far as he could tell.

His foot eased off the gas, hovered over the brake for half a heartbeat and the next thing he knew his car was swerving off the road and he was inhaling the lovely, cancer-causing aroma of burning tyre.

Well, what the fuck?

He'd missed it before, but now… well now, it was right there in his face.

The boarding house was on fire.

More specifically, Damon's room in the boarding house was on fire. There were fire-fighters in the driveway… A big, red, unbelievably loud fire truck parked haphazardly… An ambulance… with a girl that looked like a sootier, less posh version of Elena being escorted away by two paramedics…

Caroline… carrying someone… Stefan…

_Okay_… _what is fucking happening here?_

He'd opened the door, but he didn't want to get out.

_What about Brazil? We're forgetting Brazil? Am I going to run into the fire despite the warning cries of the firemen to look for Jeremy? Or am I going to assume his girlfriend witch has him covered? And speaking of crazy pyrokinetic bitches known to set inanimate objects and vampires on fire…Brazil…_

"Hey…" a woman shouted to him, catching him smack in the moment of indecision. She was… black-ish, Hispanic-ish, something-ish… _Black?_ Black… Hot-tish… _Is she hot?_ _Kinda_…

Witch.

_Let's bet she's a witch._

_How can she not be a witch?_

_The one who started the fire?_

_Are my spidey senses tingling? Am I being enticed by Scooby Snacks? _"Hey," he answered, coming out of the car and taking in a mouthful of bitter, smoky, Mystic Falls air. "What's happening here?" And because is inner Nancy Drew was already taking over, he added, "You related to Bonnie, by chance?"

"Racially profile much?" she asked.

"I didn't mean–"

"I'm related to Elena. I'm a long lost sister. From Africa."

"Seriously?"

"No. Of course I'm related to Bonnie. Epic duh." She put out her hand for a shake, "Lucy, the cousin."

"Alaric," he answered. "I'm–"

"The non-magical, high-school History teacher," she cut in. Bitchily.

Did they inherit the bitch gene with the witch gene? "It says all that on my forehead?"

"No. I inferred a lot."

"So…" Alaric took in the heat on his face. "This a case of the magic woo-woo gone wrong?"

She shrugged. "I just got here."

"Huh."

"Came to help."

Yeah, cause she looked real interested in helping. "Yeah, well maybe you can help put that out? Do some anti-fire enchantment or–"

"Anti-fire enchantment…Sounds good, but I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind for that." She looked around her distractedly, her eyebrows knitted up in a frown as Caroline moved passed them with a pale, limp Stefan.

"Something more important got you distracted? What happened? Vision of Klaus ripping us to shreds? The apocalypse is starting in half an hour? A hell-mouth's opening under our feet as we speak? What?" He could relate to something like that. Lately, all his dreams were of being ripped to shreds, or of hell-mouths opening under his feet.

"Yeah… Not really. To be honest, it's the underwear. I thought that it'd be better for appearances sake if I wore underwear. Right now, I'm wearing panties _and_ a bra, and it's super uncomfortable. The panties, I don't mind so much. It's one of those easy, breezy lacy kinds, so it's still nice and airy down there, but the bra… _God. _Breasts weren't made to be put in bras, agreed?" She sighed… then strutted away from his as though he was as insignificant as a fruit-fly.

_Bitch._

Gotta love Mystic Falls. Home to spontaneous fires, vampires, werewolves, ghost, hybrids, poverty-riddled History teachers who freelanced as vampire slayers, and bitches.

* * *

><p><strong>AN. I have two consecutive weeks of exams, so updates might be scarce. Forgive. This is part 1 of about three for Alaric. Had to write it while it was fresh. Drop a review if you likedislike.**


	11. The witching hour doth approach, bitch

_Fuck Forrest Gump. _

_Life is like a box of shit; you know exactly what you're gonna get. _

_It says 'SHIT' right on the cover._

Damon pulled his knees up, let his head drift back to hit the peeling wallpaper, and exhaled a breath he'd been holding in for God alone knew how long.

"Damon," she gasped as she stepped out of the bathroom looking like an angel. Or a really clean prostitute. The flickering fluorescent light bulb was good as sunshine on her skin. Drops of water in her eyelashes like little liquid stars… The green in her eyes made him think of apple trees and the brown made him think of summer doves. Her lips, nice… pink… frowning… "Lurk much?" she asked with a pout. "Didn't see you there in the shadows."

_Don't worry about it. I'm used to being overlooked. _"Yeah, I needed a quick word…"

"Uh huh…"

She ruffled her hair with a fluffy towel.

Raspberry shampoo.

Honey and oatmeal soap.

One of Elijah's shirts… A white shirt. Polyester, and way too large for her… Hanging off her shoulder in a way the word '_seductive' _didn't even begin to describe.

No underwear, as far as he could tell, but she didn't seem too put off by it. "How's Elijah going with the blood?" she asked as she made her way over to the man's dresser. "The more vampire blood I have in me, the better our chances of pulling this off."

"He's doing it. As commanded."

That didn't earn him so much as a flinch. There was a time, he'd swear, that he used to give her nightmares with only a glance. Now though, Little Bonnie Bennett was hitting her stride, cock-sure and confident. No longer the bashful baby bird… She'd sat there in the restaurant haggling over details and spells with Elijah without so much as a blush. She'd sat right next to him, in nothing but his bed sheet, and acted as though he didn't exist.

_Is this what happens? Do I cease to exist to them? Do I ever exist in their universe?_

He'd existed for Katherine sometime in the beginning when she'd needed a stepping stone.

Bonnie?

_Does she care whether I live or die? Did she ever? _

He couldn't tell by the attitude he was getting – the 'eat shit and die' attitude – and he couldn't tell by her face, blank and disinterested as it was.

"Fine, then." She turned one way then the other, watching herself in Elijah's mirror, in Elijah's shirt… "Don't see what else we have to discuss, really. The plan's already hashed out. We're good to go at two. That leaves you an hour and a half to feed or whatever you have to do… Elijah, too, can go feed or whatever. Only I need the blood before he goes anywhere…" She pulled her hair up into a loose, scrappy ponytail and studied him in the mirror. The frown transformed into a scowl. Her annoyance with him became palpable. "What, Damon? Say what you want to say and make it quick."

A strand of hair came loose from the wet bundle and flopped into her eye.

_Cute. _

_Katherine was cute, too. _

_Do not be fooled by the cuteness._

_A bitch is a bitch is a bitch. Be on guard. _

"Two quick questions, then I'm out of your hair. Unless you need somebody to help you brush it, or blow dry it, cause I totally wouldn't mind…"

"Two questions about?"

"Well, right off the top of my head… Question number one: why do you smell like Stefan?"

He'd been waiting hours for the chance to ask that one question.

That one million dollar question.

"Do I?" she asked, all innocence except for a little spike in the heart rate. An insignificant increase, two or three extra beats… but the very knowledge that mention of his brother's name was doing anything at all to her heart was fucking irritating.

As fucking irritating as a fucking nail in the fucking _eye_. "Yeah, you kinda do."

"Still?"

"Forty-five minutes in the shower and you still smell like my brother. Almost as if he's inside you."

"You timed me?"

"With a stopwatch."

"It matters to you how long I bathe? It matters to you who I smell like? Since when does–" Her voice stopped short. She knocked some bottles off the counter, suddenly frantic. He could feel her anger. Her _panic_. "Where's the chain, Damon?" She knocked over more bottles. Something broke. A ceramic vase shattered and the wilting flowers caught fire. "Where's Mags' chain, Damon?"

He slid the talisman out of his back pocket and jingled it. _Look at the spark in her eyes. _

_She's a black magic junkie. _"Answer the question and you get the horcrux back."

"Fuck you, Damon. Give it to me."

"Losers weepers, Bon."

Her lips curled. No fangs… no forked tongue… no smell of brimstone… no static electricity to make his hair stand on end, but make no mistake about it… Danger was in the air.

He'd watched enough National Geographic to recognise the dynamics of a predator-prey relationship. The temperature in the room was up by a couple degrees and he could almost _feel_ an aneurysm coming on.

The line between brave and retarded is drawn with a 0.2 millimetre fine-point pen though, so he repeated himself. "Why do you smell like my brother?"

She responded with frustration, a half smile and a flare of arm-waving instead of combustion. "God, Damon! Does it matter? I'm not Elena - you don't have permission to smell me–"

"Elena never gave me permission to smell her."

"Yet I'm sure you did it all the time. I can imagine you going through her dirty clothes, sniffing her underwear… Give me back the talisman!"

"I've never done that in my life. Panty sniffing? Eww."

"Why? Katherine didn't wear any? I can't deal with your old man pervert shit tonight, Damon. Just give me back the talisman–"

"Why? So you can go wild on Elijah? I didn't give this to you so that you could go slut it up with every vampire topside of the equator. Forget it. This creepy routine you do – seduce and feed? I'm not watching you do that with Elijah, so get it out of your head. You can't control it–"

"Slut?" Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline, almost. A mirror cracked. By the time the conversation was done, Elijah'd be out of breakables... "I _suggested_ that Elijah give me his blood to increase our chances of survival! The older the blood, the better. He's got a millennium and change on you. Why can't you just be grateful that he's _willing_ to help us out? _Slut_? He's putting his blood in a bottle and _giving_ it to me. Not like I'm sucking it out of his dick! You _dare _say something like that to me? To _me_? I'm _Bonnie_. You're a _man_-_whore_! You stalk out high-schools for teenage girls to sleep with and feed on! _You're_ the slut!"

"Says the girl who teleports across the world hot off a private fuck fest held in my bed!"

That came out with a little bit more bark than he'd intended, but to hell with inside voices, right? Had he lied? Was he the bad guy here for shining the light on how completely fucked up it was for her to have sex with his brother in his bed? By all possible definitions of the phrase fucked up, it was a pretty _fucked up_ thing to do – brother-fucking.

"Give me back the talisman, Damon," she said icily. "I need it if we're going to take down Klaus. I can't teleport without it."

"Fuck Klaus. The topic is Stefan! What did you do? Fuck him and then think – hey, let me go tell Damon the good news? Third strike for him, he's out? Let's go make Damon feel like an ass?"

"Damon."

"I get that Mags is responsible for a lot of the crazy. And I get that I'm responsible for Mags, so if there's any kind of explanation, I'm all ears. You needed his blood and things got out of hand? What? Tell me something, Bonnie."

"You want to know what happened?" She smiled, less angelically than before. "I should have made a video, you think? You like that kinda thing, Damon? Watching videos of your brother?"

Ouch.

Zing.

_She's an Ice Queen tonight. The devil with a ponytail._

She'd popped out of the open air, hot from hell, right there, a foot if so much away from him, naked except for his bed-sheet, smelling like heaven and sex and Stefan… and his insides had run cold. Colder than dry ice up his spine. Paralyzing.

He should have grabbed her up and whisked her away to a dark corner… He should have fucked her right then and there in the dining hall, on the table in front of everyone.

Regardless of whose scent was on her.

Regardless of whose strands of coiffed brown hair were stuck to her arm.

What did that matter? They weren't animals, and by the end he'd have put his own scent on her, anyway. Problem solved.

But he hadn't. He'd balked.

Problem unsolved.

Instead of spreading her open on the table and going down on her, his stupid, cock-blocking _brain_ had gone gallivanting down memory lane. Gallivanting all the way back to eighteen something when his father was alive and when Katherine was more subtle with the mind-fucking. She'd strung him along like a brain dead puppy and he'd been glad and gladder for it. She'd crushed him down to dirt. Made him eat shit… and he'd loved her despite it all. Hated Stefan and loved her…

Shit or chocolate? Chocolate or shit? His taste buds couldn't tell them apart anymore. Chocolate-chip shit, maybe.

'Katherine and Stefan, Katherine and Stefan, Katherine and Stefan...' the voices used to torment in the wee hours of the morning when he woke up to find himself alone, or when we watched the two of them having their little jokes at the dinner table, or when the two of them had their little glances in the corridor, or when their hands brushed as they reached for the biscuits. Katherine and Stefan. Katherine and Stefan. Katherine and Stefan.

A century later, Destiny had released the remix version – 'Stefan and Elena. Stefan and Elena. Stefan and Elena.'

And he'd forfeited that.

Just recently, in fact. He'd decided to bow out of that race. He'd defaulted. Surrendered. Yielded. _Whatever_. He'd lost the battle and decided to settle for third place.

His love for Katherine had gone gangrenous, his love for Elena, cancerous. Both, he planned to have excised, post haste. His little Bonnie - the scalpel…

Now…

_Wake up and taste it. Fresh and steaming._

Third fucking place.

_ I__ can't__ have third place? Does Stefan own the podium? _

Stefan and Bonnie.

Stefan and Bonnie?

_Sounds like the tagline for a horror movie._

_A horror movie that's also a biopic. _

_A Horror-Documentary… _

"Tell me what happened with my brother."

"Guess." _Hmm_, she'd been practising her smirking. In the two days since he'd last seen her, she'd really mastered it. "Work it around in your imagination and see what you come up with."

"I've already worked it around and I don't like what I've come up with, that's why I'm asking you to clarify the situation."

"What situation?" She pulled herself away from Elijah's bureau, giving him the full, brutal force of her attention.

He hadn't felt pins and needles in his skin since… since… since that time in 1905. "The situation with you and my brother." He wound the necklace around his wrist and clenched his fist around it. She'd have to rip his hand off to get it. She would too, he didn't doubt… She'd break him to pieces. "Tell me, or I throw this down a toilet."

Bonnie, or Mags, laughed, like the springtime gurgling of a new-born cherub… She took baby steps towards him. Cute, tantalizing baby steps…"You think I'd let you?"

_It isn't fair._

It wasn't. Not fucking fair at all, but she was too close to him now befuddling his senses with her cursed raspberry shampoo and honey oatmeal skin. She glided over to him as graceful as a supernatural ballerina, pursed her lips into a pout and raised an eyebrow as she knelt… just low enough for him to glimpse a hard dark nipple through the sagging neck of Elijah's shirt… "Jealous, Damon?"

_Don't._

"I needed blood in order to teleport, so I cut your brother's wrists and drank his. Feel better now?"

_No. _"You had to take your clothes off in my bed to do that?"

"I take my clothes off to do a lot of things."

"Things like…"

"Give me the chain, Damon," she said softly. Slowly. Wickedly hot and minty against his cheek. "Or I'll take it from you."

"Go ahead and try," he answered, grudgingly. His voice… he couldn't trust it anymore. The next thing out of his mouth might be a moan. A plead. She was just too close. He hadn't even noticed when she'd gotten that close, but she was right there in front of him hovering like a hungry jungle cat. Like a siren. Like a serial killer…

His grip around the chain tightened.

Fucking Mags.

She'd taken his innocent, virgin for life Bonnie and turned her into a harlot. The sexiest, best harlot ever, but still… He'd had something a little different in mind when he'd hatched his master plan. Something a bit more _fairy_-_tailish_.

"If I have to do it, Damon," she whispered, "It'll be painful."

"It's always painful the first time, but I'll be gentle."

"I know you'll be gentle," her lips curled. "You're nothing but a big old pussy cat…" She licked him, right across his mouth. "A big ol' puddy tat…"

_You know you love a woman when a Tweety-Bird impression makes you hard. _He licked her back, swiping his tongue over her top lip. "I'm as gentle as vampires come."

"_But what if I like it rough?" _she said in his brain. _"What if I want to make you scream?"_

"_Go ahead and try."_

Her hand closed over his… Her eyelashes fluttered against his skin… And just like that she was gone. Replaced by cold air and nothingness. Gone, her and the necklace.

She laughed. _At_ him, not _with_ him. "God, Damon." She fastened the thing around her neck, admiring her handiwork back at the mirror again. "Pick your tongue off the floor. I never knew you were _this_ easy. No wonder Elena walks all over you… That was so obvious! What did you think I was going to do? You had the chain in your hand! With Mags in my head, I might come on to you, but seriously? Short of being brainwashed, you know I'd never go for you, right? Short of being brain dead, brainwashed or compelled, I don't think _any_ woman would go for you. Except probably whores… who you'll have to pay extra."

"I get it, Bonnie."

"Do you, Damon?" She folded the collar of Elijah's shirt into a semblance of neatness. Her pretty evil eyes looking at him through mirror… "Cause I'm willing to spell it out if you need me to. I could probably talk to someone about getting it in braille. Tactile stimulation seems to work with you."

"You planning on putting on pants at any point tonight? Or you're wearing that when we head over to Klaus?"

"Do I look like I could fit into one of Elijah's pants?"

"If you used a belt, maybe…"

"Well, I prefer this."

"I realise."

"That it for Question Time?"

"No. I have a follow-up. Pertinent, this time." He stretched and got to his feet. He'll postpone the pity party until he could get a decent amount of alcohol in his system. For the time being, the switch would have to dial down to 'Off'. Or 'Lo'. "Question number two. Can you do this?"

…

Elijah shut the rickety door behind him as he stepped into the ratty, weed infested patch of land behind the house that Damon wouldn't deign to call a backyard. Despite the swing-set.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"A penny?" Damon sighed, "What's the matter? Recession got to you too?"

"I've got ten pounds on me."

"Wow… I always figured you as one of those aristocratic kinds. When you said you had a house near Heathrow, I thought it was more like… a real house… with multiple bathrooms and guest bedrooms and… all kinds of fancy shit. A bidet, perhaps." He flung the empty beer bottle into a patch of grass, disturbing a humming hive of mosquitoes. "A lawn mower."

"Yeah," the Original shrugged. "The property went to shit while I was dead."

By the colour in the man's cheeks, Damon would guess the vampire had snacked down on twenty, twenty-five humans at least. He was almost _ruddy_. Like a slim Santa.

There was a time when Bonnie would have taken offense at that, a vampire binging out on the innocent populace of… of whatever shit village they were in… but she was playing it loose with morals recently.

"You look rather pink for a guy who just pumped out two litres of blood."

"You know how it is in the world. Give and take…"

"How's Bonnie?"

"Chugging like a babe at the mother's breast."

"She show you _her_ breasts at any point?" He chucked the beer cap into one of Elijah's windows. Smiled as the glass pane shattered…

"She tried but I resisted," Elijah answered with one of his lazy grins. "Jealousy does not become you, Damon."

"Don't know what you're talking about, geezer."

"I'm a little bit surprised, though, at the switch-up. I thought you'd be licking at Elena's heels for at least a century again."

"Nope." He'd run out of things to throw. "Her heels are ashy."

"From all the dirt she kicks up in your face?"

"Yup."

"And you like you're heels how these days? Magical?"

"And you wonder why people try to kill you… Don't you own a jersey? Sweatpants? Jeans, at least?" Damon surveyed the other vampire in the blazer coolly, not actually caring what he was wearing. "You look like you're going to work. At a night bank."

"Gotta look sharp when you kill your brother, don't you?"

"Yeah? I'm good with slacks and flip flops. All I'll need is something pointy."

"Yeah, no one can deny that you're an easy-going fellow," Elijah sat himself on the swing. "So what's got your boxers in a wedgie, tonight?"

"The usual."

"I'm paying ten bucks here, don't skimp on the details. Come on, it's Sharing and Caring time with Uncle Elijah. I see you didn't manage to make away with the chain."

"Nope."

"Yeah… Once you had it, maybe you should have gotten rid of it? I don't know… Hurled it into the ocean or something, maybe? Sitting there and watching her bathe was maybe the wrong way to go."

"Yup."

"Not too smart, that."

"Nope."

"What happened? She got rough with you?"

"Too rough, and not rough enough, if you know what I mean."

"Sadly, I do." Elijah cocked his head to a side, giving the moonlight a chance to get past his manly bangs and glimmer off his eyes. He sat there, letting he crickets have a turn at making the noise for a while, then slumped himself against one of the chains with a huff. "I've got my own horror story about Magwyr the Red, if you want to hear it."

"Of course, I want to hear it."

"It was–"

"Sarcasm, Elijah. I don't want–"

"It was 1425. Where you in 1425, Damon? Oh no, wait. You weren't alive back then, so shut up and listen to your elders. I was alive an already ancient when Magwyr was born. I was there, on the scene so to say, when she was just a scared young woman discovering her powers in some wayside jungle island. She was intelligent, she was beautiful, she was innocent and I saw the potential in her. I thought that I could take her and make her into more than any witch ever dreamed to be.

"If she's a beacon of darkness today, it's because I made her like that. I was the first vampire to come to her. Her first foray into the night. The first to offer up a vein and promise to lay a kingdom at her feet. I took her as a human and reshaped her to suit my needs. Supernatural and physical needs. Then, like an exotic cat on a chain, I brought her out of the jungle and into the world, showing her off like a prize. I was proud of my masterpiece. I gave her my blood, and she became stronger. Before I knew it, she was beyond my control.

"Too wild… She was too dangerous to keep indoors so like a good master, I set her loose. Loose in Europe, loose in Asia, loose in the world. Free to finish her corruption on whatever vice she came by. Ten years later, I don't think she was even human anymore. She was a monster. A beautiful, beguiling monster all grown up. She'd spent so long watching me, studying me… and the only thing she'd learnt was how to be a monster. How to hunt. How to manipulate people into traps. How to _feed_ off _life. _A full decade later she'd come back looking for me, catching, feeding on and killing every vampire she could get her hands on in the meanwhile, then she turned to the werewolves and started _eating_ them. _Raw_."

"What? You think she should have set up the Foreman?"

"There's not a law in nature that Magwyr hasn't broken. She kept me prisoner for fifty seven years, Damon. Fifty-seven years I spent unable to move my body, strapped down with an IV line in my hand, watching my blood drain from me. You know how I got free? Travelling missionaries saw my desiccated carcass in a chair, thought I was dead and had the goodness of heart to put me in the ground. Do you have any idea of the kind of strength it takes for a witch to pull off something like that with an Original?"

"Mags is dead."

"Dead?" Elijah scoffed. "Don't let her fool you. You think you're the first one to wise up and try to kill her? There's a list of vampires long as my arm who have managed to put Magwyr in her grave once and for all. What do you think I did as soon as I got some flesh back on my bones? I climbed through a window, broke her neck while she slept, cut her heart out, roasted it in the fireplace and fed it to one of my dogs. Cassius, the Great Dane, if I remember correctly."

"You sure about that, because she didn't seem too dead while I was fucking her."

"Why do you think she left her charms scattered all over the globe? They're her life insurance policy. She's like a disease. You can cure it, put it in remission, but you can't kill it."

"Mags is dead, Elijah," Damon repeated. He raised a finger to the house. "Bonnie's in control of that. When this is done with Klaus, she takes off that fucking necklace and everything goes back to normal."

"Normal?" The swing set creaked as the vampire shifted. "Bonnie's already gone and you don't even realise it. That _thing_ in there is 95% Magwyr. She's willing to cooperate with us because she wants to get to Klaus. Get some hybrid blood in her system. She knows that _I_ know that she's in there, but she knows that we need her power and that you have a soft spot for the girl. As long as she's in Bonnie's skin, she's counting on you to protect her. Right now she needs a bodyguard because she's not anywhere near her full power. Not until she gets her hands on a werewolf. When that happens though. Heads are going to roll. Yours in particular. Let her catch you with your pants down, and see if you don't get what's coming to you. If it's one thing Magwyr isn't fond of, it's being killed. She holds a grudge for stuff like that."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Yes," he answered flatly. "Every fifty years or so, there's some woman somewhere in the world who stumbles across one of Magwyr's heirlooms. Each time it ends with more bloodshed than the last. Magwyr gets into their brains and reworks every memory, every neuronal synapse until that person ceases to exist and Magwyr alone remains. Immortality, in a sense. All she ever wanted."

"That's impossible."

"Is it? How does life and death work, Damon? How does magic work? Show me where you draw the line between what's possible and what's not. I've gone so far as to have specialists create and analyse neurological maps of Magwyr's victims–"

"Sounds expensive."

"Vampire discount card."

"All I have to do is get the chain away from her. Without the chain, she goes back to being normal Bonnie–"

"When last have you seen normal Bonnie? Because that thing in there isn't normal Bonnie– "

"What the fuck do you know about normal Bonnie?"

"What the fuck do _you_ know about normal Bonnie? From what I've gathered about the girl, I can tell–"

"You can't tell shit, Elijah. Back in the restaurant, that was normal Bonnie. She's a doormat most of the time but when she has to bring the heat, she brings it. She isn't some fly-by-night floozy-Suzy that Mags can snuff out. She's a badass witch in her own right."

"The girl's a vessel, and you can't see that. Yes, she's stronger. Yes, she can do more spells. Yes, she can teleport. Yes, she popped out of thin air, naked and calling your name–"

"End of fucking discussion, Elijah."

"I'm just giving you a heads-up, Damon. It's five to two so times up anyway. We have to do this, but keep your head on and don't let her kill you. Prove, for once in your life that you're not some pussy-whipped, snot-nosed brat, Damon."

"What do you want me to do, kill her?"

"It's not come to that as yet." Elijah stood, straightening his clothes. "As it stands, we need her. And she needs us. When that changes–"

"End of the fucking discussion, Elijah." Damon pulled his vibrating phone from his pocket. Alaric. "I gotta take this."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I'm back… Exams went like spray paint in the eyes… That good.<strong>

**lol**

**I actually had to read over this whole story to remember where I was. I should probably make notes or something. OneNote rocks by the way, for that.  
><strong>

**Really sorry 'bout the two week hiatus… I'm not going to go into too much of Mags history, so don't worry. Neither Elijah's. This chapter ended up extra-long because my desk is cluttered and I couldn't see the word count… We're about halfway through now, getting to a juicy middle...**


	12. From the far side of the river

"Hey…" Alaric held the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he filled out the release forms in the hospital. The nurse, a squat peasant-looking frog of a woman narrowed her eyes at him. _Right. Cell phone police. _He capped the pen as he finished a scrappy signature and headed over to the lobby. "How's it going?"

"Awesome," Damon answered fake-excitedly. "Me and Elijah here just kicking it, listening to some vinyl and swinging back some beers. Or mead, as they might call it."

"Still in England?"

"Yup. And loving it. It's got this awesome dampness to it. I mean, if you like mildew, you'll love it over here."

He'd been to England once. Just once, with Isobel. They'd gone to Old Trafford for a soccer match. It hadn't been his thing, winter-time soccer. Too cold, too boring, too wet… Isobel had liked it though. She'd had the time of her life. She'd called him 'boxed-in' when he'd complained about his fingers going numb. "Cherish that mildew, my friend. I take it he didn't just hand the sword over. Are you being tortured right now? Cough once for yes."

"Torture? Please." He could hear Damon smirking. "Elijah? He's braiding my hair. So what's up? I'm hearing sirens and hospital beeps. Everybody still alive?"

"Mostly…" Alaric put a five dollar bill in the drinks machine. _A Coke? Or Orange Fanta?_

The line was silent for a while, then, "What's that supposed to mean? Everybody's mostly alive? Mostly everybody's alive? Someone's slightly dead?"

_How do I break this?_ "There was a fire."

"And…"

"And nothing, really. There was a fire, some minor burns... They just discharged Elena–"

"Jeremy? What about Jeremy? He died in the fire?"

"No."

"He died on arrival?"

_For the love of God… _"Jeremy's not dead. Hold off on the back-flips."

"Who's dead, then?" Damon snorted. "Tyler? _Matt, _at least?"

"Nobody's dead." _Orange Fanta it is. _

"Now I'm confused."

"Well, Stefan's kinda dead."

"Stefan?"

"Stefan. Your brother."

"Stefan's dead?"

"Kinda dead."

"Stefan's been kinda dead since 1864. Please, clarify what you mean by - open quotation marks - kinda dead – closed fucking quotation marks."

_Attitude? _

_That was attitude, right?_

_Ignore it?_

_Why not? You didn't go to Brazil when I told you to. You wanted to stay and be Buffy, so deal._

"Well, that's the thing. What's the difference between a dead vampire and a live one? Not like he has a pulse to check if you get what I'm saying."

"So, he's what? Unconscious."

"You could say that. Or we can just say 'dead'. I tried putting some blood down his throat, but there wasn't any change. His body's back at Elena's. Everybody's there with him so he's safe–"

"Elena's? I thought you said there was a fire? Why are they still at Elena's?"

"Hm?"

"Why don't they go over to the boarding house?"

"Oh yeah… Well, the thing about the fire… It was at the boarding house."

"Come again?"

"Yeah, the fire was at you place. So… you'll have to deal with that when you get back. Spread some plastic or something."

"How'd the fire even start?"

"Yeah… We're still kinda vague on that, but I'm thinking Bonnie."

"Bonnie burnt down the boarding house?"

"That's a strong maybe."

"As I said, kinda vague with the details."

"I don't need details, just a general scenario. What happened? She was playing with her candles near the liquor cabinet?"

"Not really. No. As far as I heard, about an hour or two after you left, she shut herself up in your room. According to Elena, Stefan tried to get her out and the next thing they know your entire bedroom is up in flames and Stefan is comatose. Your room is gone entirely. And the fire sorta spread from there downwards. So… the whole living room area is pretty much ruined. A good bit of your library. The study. Two guest rooms. The garage roof–"

"So pretty much everything on my half of the house?"

"Yeah."

"And nobody knows why? Was it good Bonnie, or evil Bonnie"

"I don't have the whole story, _as I've said_. Stefan's not talking, _as I've also said. _Elena's in panic mode. She's just been treated for smoke inhalation so I haven't had time to interrogate her yet. Sorry. And Caroline is… Well, you know how Caroline is."

"As reliable as E-news."

"Just about. Oh, and Bonnie's missing. She is nowhere to be found."

"For a school teacher, Ric, I thought you'd be more responsible. You let your students play with fire… go missing… "

"Put in a formal complaint, like everybody else. Between the fire, and the smoke inhalation, and the comatose slash dead vampire, I got distracted. And there's this other witch. Lucy. She's Bonnie's cousin or sister or something. Gives off an extremely menacing vibe, you know her? Very evil-feeling."

Damon barked a laugh. "Yeah. She's not evil, just extremely bitchy. What does she want?"

"To help? I have no fucking idea. She just makes my blood crawl, in a bad way. But I figure we can use her to replace Bonnie in the resurrection spell, yeah? One witch is as good as another, right? And since Bonnie's AWOL…"

"Yeah, about that. Bonnie's with me. She teleported."

"Across the Atlantic?"

"Yup. She's with me and Elijah. We're going to teleport to Klaus, which should give us a two second element of surprise at least, which should be enough for one of us to grab a handful of guts. Then we teleport back to Mystic Falls, resurrect Geraldine and live happily ever after. Assuming, we still have the items, or are they among the things we lost in the fire?"

"We have them."

"Okay, then… if everything goes according to plan. We'll be back in about half an hour. Ask Lucy if she could help set things up and save time."

"Copy that."

* * *

><p>…<p>

"Elena…" He pulled up the brakes and sighed. "You might want to stay in the car…"

Something was off. You don't get to be a middle-aged vampire hunter without getting a sense for when something goes off.

Maybe not when it came to household chores – he'd made that omelette with the bad milk last week and that had fucked him up – but when it came to his night job, you could bet your bottom dollar that he'd be firing on all cylinders.

The girl peered out into the darkness and locked her door. "Maybe we both want to stay in the car."

"No shit." The streetlights were down so low they could as well be off. The windows and doors of the house were strewn open, curtains were billowing… A sheet of newspaper and a Styrofoam cup were blowing down the driveway. A little mini-storm was brewing overhead. A flash of lightning was dancing across the sky. The only thing missing was a coyote on the doorstep. "Define 'bad idea'." His hand fondled the door handle considering his options. "There's Jeremy in there," he said, to himself and Elena next to him.

"Jeremy's got his ring."

"Right." _And I don't. Why? Because your shit-eating dad blackmailed me out of mine. And guess what, Jenna's dead, anyway. Should have told him to suck it. _"Who else is in there? Stefan's unconscious. Caroline's got her vampire powers and Tyler, who has his werewolf powers. That leaves Lucy…The hell-bitch…"

"What? She's pretty cool. She came through for us in the end, at least."

"After pledging loyalty to Katherine? That's proof that's she's not trustworthy"

"She's Bonnie's cousin."

"And that's supposed to mean what?" he twisted to look at her. "I have a cousin Ronnie. Lives in DC. Killed both his parents. Stifled them in their sleep. Schizophrenic."

Elena stared.

_Sharing too much? _

_Am I the worst fake godfather ever?_ Alaric sighed. There was nothing to be done for it now. He'd chosen his path down crazy street that day he'd bought his first crossbow.

"This track's going out to Jenna from Mark to keep her company on the late night shift," the DJ came through the static on the radio.

_Don't wish it away  
>Don't look at it like it's forever<br>Between you and me  
>I could honestly say<br>That things can only get better_

_And while I'm away_  
><em>Dust out the demons inside<em>  
><em>And it won't be long<em>  
><em>Before you and me run<em>  
><em>To the place in our hearts<em>  
><em>Where we hide–<em>

He switched it off. "Someone's gotta go. We can't both hide out from whatever's going on in there, and I'm dead sure that something beyond the ordinary is going on in that house."

She nodded in slow agreement. "I'm no expert at magic, but this little tropical depression doesn't seem natural," she said with her brown eyes wide and Bambie looking. Even as she spoke, a gigantic raindrop went splat against the windscreen.

Magic was in the air. Definitely. And not Bonnie's good kind of candle-lighting magic. This was _bad_ magic. "Why would Lucy be doing this? What's she doing?"

"I don't know, but I trust her."

_You trust everybody, and it's because of you and all this misplaced trusting that Jenna dead._ He could say that and be hurtful, but what was the point of being hurtful for hurtful's sake. He'd been to blame there, too.

Elena was just a girl.

A pretty, naïve, seventeen year old girl and they'd let her have her way instead of taking things in hand. Not evil. Not malicious. Not like she wanted her aunt dead. Just too trusting.

Alaric fished out his knife from the from the rubble heap of empty soda cups in the back seat. "Maybe _I _should stay in the car, then," he joked, "And you go ask your friend what's up. If you don't come back out in five minutes, I'll assume you're dead and call the sheriff."

"So she can come shoot my brother again?" Elena squinted. "You go check it out. I'll stay here."

He killed the engine and threw her the keys. "If I don't come back in five minutes, start up and split. Go to the mall or somewhere with a lot of people."

"I know the drill."

"Right." He pulled his jacket up over his head and got out the car.

_Right_. His feet nearly slipped on the wet driveway tiles. Inch by inch, millimetre by millimetre he crept towards the house.

_Knock? Don't knock? Knock? _

_Why the fuck would you knock? _He peeped through the glass, saw nothing, pushed the door open and flipped on the light switch.

_Right. _The temperature was so high, he was sweating in an instant. _Like the sun is farting on me…_

"So…"

They were all just sitting there on the sofa. Caroline, Tyler and Jeremy. Stefan… They'd managed to get him up, apparently… He was in the love-seat by himself looking spectacularly ghastly. And Lucy…

Lucy was drawing a circle on the floor in what looked like blood. The woman looked up at him, her black eyes twinkling in the dim light, a fake, plastic smile distorting her face…

"So," Alaric started again, "Why do I get the feeling that if I say something wrong here I'll end up in the cornfield?"

"Cornfield?" the witch wrinkled her face. "You might end up in a cemetery, if you're lucky, but I don't usually go for cornfields." Then she went back to finishing her bloody artwork. The four of them did not, except sit and look on. He'd guess compulsion except Caroline and Stefan were both vamps and Lucy was just a witch. Far as he knew, witches couldn't do compulsions. Not on vamps, at least.

"This some kind of evil spell?" _Who's the hick? Put me in suspenders._

"Some kind of evil spell…" Lucy echoed, putting the last touches on her macabre design. she propped herself on her knees. "My, my… Here's the inquisitive mind I love so much." She got to her feet. Her bare feet. "A man like you with such a sharp eye and inquisitive mind… I figure a man like you might know a thing or two about the goings on in this place. A man like you might have answers, and a man like you might – just _might_ – be smart enough to give me those answers. So what do you think? Feeling lucky? Would you like to take a chance at a question or two?"

"Not really…"

He'd never been threatened by a woman before. He'd always imagined that it would be sultry. Seductive… But it wasn't. Not at all. Whatever the opposite of a hard-on was... that was what he had. He was decisively, definitely, irresolutely, irreconcilably turned _off_. Weirdly, because the witch wasn't bad looking. Not at all. She was just… really… portentous… and marrow-chillingly evil.

"Heh…" she wiped her bloody hands in her floral pattern top. "Come on…" she coaxed. "Be a good boy. You might get lucky. Lucky in a life-or-death way…"

"And it's too late for me to go back out the door, right?"

"Oh, it's most definitely too late for that."

"Split personalities acting up on you today or something?"

"It might be PMS, I'm not sure. And that's enough of the friendly banter. Let's get down to the threats. Tell me where Bonnie is–"

"I don't know where she is."

"Aren't you the baby-sitter?"

"Yeah, but I'm not certified. I get sloppy sometimes with the details."

"Huh, I'd believe that except your heart's beating just the teeniest bit faster which tells me that you know _exactly_ where she is. Bring Bonnie to me or I kill Jeremy. I let you go, and I give you half an hour to come back from wherever you stashed the girl. Every half an hour more you don't show up, I kill one of these lovely youths until I run out of people, then I come find you and kill you, the girl and Damon. I make it home in time for the repeat of Letterman. Deal?"

"No deal?"

"If you pick 'no deal', I kill Jeremy. Right here, right now."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"What the fuck kind of witch are you? Witches don't go around killing people, as far as I know. You light candles and make the wind blow. What do you want with Bonnie?"

The woman sighed and wiped her hands again in her top. So much blood…"No one takes me seriously until I start killing people. Jeremy," she called the boy, waving him over like if he was a puppy.

Like a puppy, he came.

"Whoa…" Alaric reached out to grab the boy and the next thing he knew he was flying backwards up into the ceiling. He hit the back of his head hard and crash landed through the glass coffee table. No one moved to help him.

_Ahhh… _He tugged his hand free of a jagged shard of glass. _You'll never be an artist, now. But you like this, right? The worse it hurts, the better you sleep._

Lucy nudged his face with her foot. Dragged the sole of her feet down his cheek… Traced his lip with her big toe… Then kicked him. Hard. "I've been waiting here for about… I don't know… _hours! _You had me going with the whole 'she disappeared into thin air' ruse, but I'm not just a pretty face. This girl's got a brain." She grabbed Jeremy by the throat. Raised him off the ground like he was weightless… All that poundage… "I've got places to go and a whole long list of people to fuck with, and frankly…" she snapped Jeremy's neck with a sickening cracking of bone and cartilage. So fiercely, she ripped the skin. "I'm bored with this now. "

"Ah…" Caroline gasped… but did nothing more. Not one of them even moved.

"What?" the woman giggled, flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled as she let Jeremy's body fall. "He's going to come back! It's what he does! Oh… No… Wait…" she held up the ring to the light, studying it with a grin for a moment, as if she was a pawnshop broker. Then she crushed it. "Oops. Shit... Did he need that? I'm so clumsy. Happens when I get nervous."

Alaric groaned, tried to shake the blood out his eyes but there was too much. He was bleeding from his scalp badly and from other places. A piece of wood had gone through his belly… it kept him pinned down but it didn't hurt too bad. The hand that had been run through didn't work, and there was a gnawing, acid pain in his throat. A taste of bile and metal.

_Was it like this for Jenna? Or faster? _

"New deal," he heard Lucy go on… "Somebody tell me where Bonnie is, and I leave you a body to bury. Otherwise, Jeremy Love Hewitt and I are going to have ourselves a bit of a barbeque. Yes, that's right, I'm gonna cook him. Then I'm gonna eat him. And worse, I'm gonna make all of you share a nibble. Unless somebody starts talking."

* * *

><p><strong>AN- Did over this chapter at least four times and I still don't like it. Don't know how to make it better. I'll probably write it over when the whole thing is finished. The next chapter goes back to Damon and Bonnie and Elijah... but I don't like it too much either, so I'm thinking a mini-rewrite on that too.<strong> **I'm making Klaus too evil, yeah?** **Or no? Not too much jokes in this one or for the next two to come... More moving the plot forward a bit. Sorry for the lack of Bamon action, too.**

**Reading this over, it almost makes me feel sad. Is Alaric sad in this? Weird that I can't tell?  
><strong>

**As always thanks for the reviews from everybody still following up with my long-winded tale. Big, big thanks.**


	13. Fingers crossed

Teleporting hurt.

It hadn't when she'd done it alone that first time. That first time had been a real beauty. Emancipating. _Snazzy_. Very dreamlike, crossing leagues and leagues of land and ocean in less than a blink. The caress of the salty wind on her face... Just wonderful. Like tumbling through Downy blankets… or like wrestling with a cotton-candy man.

Carrying two vampires along for the ride, though?

Not so nice.

The shit fucking hurt.

Blood was in her eyes, burning. It was in her nose, coming up or going down her throat, seeping out from the creases of her fingernails… She couldn't tell if her feet were on solid ground or if she was walking on a cloud. She couldn't see past the red blur. She couldn't hear. She couldn't breathe… Her hands reached out for Damon. She hoped.

She couldn't feel her hands either, to tell the truth, but Damon was supposed to be there, somewhere. He was an ass, no doubt or denial about that, and homicidal and evil and despicable and all of that… but he was a dependable kind of evil, homicidal, despicable ass. An evil, homicidal, despicable ass she could trust to step up when the going got hard. The kind of taunting, mischievous ass that would give her shit for fucking up the spell, but in a way that would be more condescending than malicious. If she'd teleported them into a volcano or deep ocean trench (she really couldn't tell where they were), he'd be –'aww shucks… Bonnie the fuck up fucks up once again'. And if she ended up permanently blind or paraplegic, he'd be – 'she's not Elena, so no problem'.

The problem was Elijah. Elijah with his thousand and one death glares. Elijah and his not so subtle hatred. She'd started the teleportation without too much concern over him, but now, stranded, drained, vulnerable… Her hands quested out for Damon again with disturbing desperation.

"_You're gonna have to kill him, Bonnie."_

"_Huh?" _

Mags,_ "Elijah."_

"_Now? I can't kill him! He's an Original! I can't even see! I can't even breathe! I can't–"_

"_Let me, then. I can kill him. I have a spell with his name on it."_

"_We need him!"_

"_Need? All we need from him is the sword. He's just dead weight attached at the hilt,_" Magwyr answered, her voice screaming through Bonnie's brain like a bullet. A slew of bullets. Not helpful in the least. _"Too much dead weight," _she continued. _"You're not strong enough to carry so much weight!"_

Her body heaved, and her stomach emptied. It had been too much, no doubt or denial about that either. Even with two litres of Elijah's blood in her, teleporting herself and the two vampires had been way too much. It hurt. Every nerve in her body was on fire. A nail gun was firing off loose in her head. Her insides were becoming her outsides.

The shit fucking hurt.

It hurt worse than resurrecting Jeremy.

Even worse than that time she'd tried to materialise DiCaprio out of a Titanic poster. And that had been bad.

"_We're gonna have to kill him," _Mags reiterated, and her scratchy voice seemed to echo on forever.

"_He's on our side!"_

"_Side?"_ the woman chuckled. _"We witches don't work with sides; we work with circles, and this road-show is a two woman thing. Stop trusting them, Bonnie. You think they care whether you live or die? You think Elijah cares? He'll kill you as soon as he gets the chance. Rip your heart out and feed it to his dog. If he still keeps dogs…"_

"_I'm not killing Elijah."_

"_We need the blood if we're going to do this. Damon's heavy. The Original's heavier, and Klaus will be a mountain."_

"_We're not carrying Klaus back."_

"_Aren't we? I'd think delivering the prey to the slayer would be the most efficient way to get the beast slain." _

"_I'm not killing anybody!"_

"_The amount of blood we're gonna need is bound to kill somebody, baby Bonnie. With great power comes a great death toll. Isn't that something you say?"_

"_I won't do it. I can't!"_

"_That's why you have me, Bonnie. To help out…" _

…

Now… He really should have seen that one coming.

The vomit was hot on his hands. Mushy noodles, yellow pieces of corn, chunks of grilled chicken, bits of parsley, a little green slime thrown in too… Some blood…

It was on his shoes… and some splatter had ricocheted up from the tile to his face…

"Ahhh…" Damon half-laughed half groaned. "Some serious reflux you got going on, Bon," he said, but his eyes were taking in the surroundings.

For a rat bastard, Klaus had style. No curtains… Huge glass windows overlooking some city or the other – the lights blinking on and off against the night sky backdrop was breath-taking. A lot of space… Sparsely furnished… A bed/lounge chair/something… Two or three adjoining rooms. Kitchenette… White leather recliner… A massive 3D TV with the glasses on the ground… iPod on the floor… Black Bösendorfer imperial grand piano in the corner, right next to a blow-up pool… Yellow, blood-speckled rubber duck in the blow-up pool… Hardcover _Breaking_ _Dawn_ on the table with a bookmark halfway through… A potted fern with Christmas decorations in another corner…

It could almost be the wrong place, except for the bloody rubber ducky.

And the vomit in the living room… He wiggled his foot, trying to shake some of it free of his shoes. His never-to-be-worn again shoes. "I'm sure Klaus won't mind. It blends in so well," he directed at the coughing girl who'd delivered them into Klaus' den, and simultaneous ruined any element of surprise they could ever hope to have with all her gagging and gasping… "And speaking of pimped cribs you've destroyed–"

The girl collapsed. Straight up _face-planted_ into his chest.

_Wrong place… wrong time… _

_In so far as there could ever be a wrong time for a girl to swoon in his arms and… _

"Ughhh…" he stood frozen for a moment or two, half panicked half confused, rapid-analysing the situation and trying like hell to ignore the flecks of carrot on his vomit covered hands.

Without her, they were screwed. And stranded. Which was worse. He'd been in dire situations before he couldn't remember the last time he'd been in one _half_ so dire. The stakes were too high, he'd waged too much and he was too distracted.

_Bonnie doesn't chew her food. _That had been his first coherent thought.

And after that:_ How gross would it be if I lick my fingers?_

It was hard to think. What with Klaus' particularly violent aura reeking to high heaven, emanating from some place he couldn't put a point on, flooding every pore in his skin. The hybrid could by hiding under the rug or swinging from the chandelier, for all he could tell. Waiting to pounce from atop the bookless bookcase, maybe.

Then there was the all too familiar cloying, dark vibe of a dead body.

And one other person.

One other person that he couldn't get a fix on, a less lethal but sharper aura than Klaus'. Nearer, coming from somewhere in the sprawling, very clean, well-lit room.

_My dead carcass is going to ruin the décor. Worse than Bon's vomit. _

They had to leave_. Duh. _The question was, how. Obviously not back the way they'd come in… Bonnie didn't look quite as though she had another long distance jump in her.

_Elevator, maybe? _

_Or hurl ourselves through one of these windows? _

"Damon…" Bonnie muttered, barely audible as she started to slide down his chest. He grabbed her. With his vomit covered hands.

"I've got you." _You threw up on my hands. _"I've got you. Don't panic."

_I say that, and I have no plan… We're bleeding men in a shark pool. Fucking–_

"She fainted?" Elijah whisper-barked, the vein up the middle of his forehead pulsatile. To the untrained human ear it might have come across as gentle as the ruffle of flower petals, but Damon had trained vampire ears. He could hear fleas on Persian cat, so picking up on the angry scorn was no biggie. "Two fucking litres and a half," Elijah hissed, "And she passes out now?"

Damon gathered the girl in his arms. Her lips were moving but there was no sound. Only blood. Her gums… Her teeth... Everything was red… Her heart was beating at a rate he couldn't even count. Just a hum… One continuous, vibrating, resounding hum… Her lips were saying, but there was no sound and he couldn't concentrate to read them.

_A racing heartbeat is better than no heartbeat._

He pushed her hair back…_ God… _He didn't even have to feel her pulse, he could _see_ it. He could _hear_ it. Hear the blood pounding through her arteries like a tsunami through a storm-pipe. _Help. _

Elijah distanced himself.

_No, no, no, no. Not now. _

The vampire in the black blazer was doing it again. "Not to spit in your eye, Damon," he said, with his forked, two-timing tongue, "But when you put your life in a witch's hands, it helps if she's out of high-school. Less prone to… nose-bleeds and fainting spells. Now that your Plan A has epically failed, I think it's time we initiate Plan B."

"We don't have a Plan B."

"_I_ have a plan B."

_Fuck…_ The air came out of her in a soft, weedy sigh. Her body went limp. Her hands dangled lifelessly. The shiny talisman on her neck shimmered uselessly. "Bonnie?" He looked down at the girl, then back up at Elijah. _Don't. Fuck. Fucking fuck! _Little pools of red were forming at the corner of her eyes. Her skin was cold… Red and sweating, but cold. _Fuck_… His wrist went to his mouth and then to hers almost automatically. "Elijah! Help me!"

Elijah didn't spare them a glance. He picked the iPod off the floor and set in on the lounge chair. "That's not part of Plan B, Damon."

"What fucking plan? There's no fucking plan without Bonnie!"

"It behoves me to improvise."

_Behoves? _"She's fucking dying here, you bastard!" He pulled his hand away for a split second to tear the wound open wider then pressed it to her mouth again, watching his blood . No response. "Help me! You're blood's better than mine! For fuck's sake, Elijah! Do–"

He saw it coming, at least. For whatever good there was in seeing it coming. Not like there was anything he could do about it with his ass planted on the floor, Bonnie in his lap and his wrist in her mouth. Not like he could have ditched her and escaped through a window. Not like he was one for saving himself. Not like he could he could have used her 5'4'' frame as a shield. Not like he knew capoeira… The pin-striped knee collided with the left side of his skull, shattering bone and turning the world back to front, upside down. Deaf, or not deaf, blind, or not blind, he couldn't even open his mouth to scream. Fingers like claws raked his hair and scalp back. "Baby bones, Damon. You runt… stay conscious now. There are people who want to see you."

The refrigerator door that Damon hadn't noticed was open closed, and someone chuckled. _Chuckled_. "That's funny. Coming from you, Elijah." The other person, a woman, Greta, he presumed, hefted a blood bag in her hand then punctured it with a straw. "I mean, we're just about five minutes away from putting up Wanted posters with _your_ name on it. 'Wanted dead or alive – one Original Vampire by the name of Elijah, last seen with The Sword of White Bone, answers to Betrayer… Heart-Grabber… Judas…" She moved lazily around the kitchen counter and slumped herself on a stool, slurping at her blood bag as if it were a juice box.

Cool as a fucking cucumber on ice, Elijah cruised over to the woman and set the sword, _The_ _Sword_, down next to her. "Thought I stole it?" he asked flatly, "What would I do with it? Maddox asks me to keep it safe, I kept it safe, and better yet, I return baring gifts. One witch imbibed with the power of her dead ancestors–"

"And a little something on the side, if I'm correct in placing the jewellery around her neck as Magwyr's chain?"

"That too. And Damon, for your pleasure."

"Aren't you the regular tinker?" she said, with a pleased, content smile.

Elijah smiled.

Damon didn't smile. He couldn't. The part of his brain responsible for moving his lips hadn't healed yet, and besides, there wasn't too much for him to smile about anyway. He was being betrayed by the most notorious double-crosser to exist.

_Fool me once…_

He couldn't tell exactly what she was wearing, but it wasn't foreboding in the least. Very _earthy,_ a vest with a shawl… or a poncho… "So…" he cleared his throat of pieces of bone that had broken off from the base of his skull and come down through his nose. "How you doing?"

"Pretty good," she shrugged. "Dying was tough. Had a little paranoia for a while about people standing behind me. Then there's this…" she slushed the blood bag, "…and the murder of my father and brother… But otherwise, I'm pretty good. How 'bout you? Miss Hot Mess doesn't seem so… hot."

There used to be a time when he'd inspired terror in the likes of shawl wearing girlies like Greta. When he'd set towns on fire and mothers to tears. There was a time when priests used to refer to him by name in their sermons, warning the faithful about the restless dangers prowling in the night. Even with Katherine, when he'd been a little puppy-dog on a leash, he'd been fearsome. Dreadful to behold.

How was it that _that_ Damon had come to this?

This pathetic _thing_? Begging for his life from a girl? Not even begging for his life… Begging for the life of _another_ girl? "The two of you being witches and all that… Sisters in the occult…" he tried his hardest to smile, or make any kind of facial expression. "Might I be so forward as to persuade upon you to not kill her while she's totally out of it? It won't be honourable."

"Honourable…" She raised her eyebrows slowly as she slurped on her blood. "You know about being honourable… Vampire like you? Who specializes in distraction? Sneaks up from behind and snaps my neck when I'm not looking… honourable?"

"Holding a grudge over that?"

"You bet, love."

Elijah folded his arms and sank onto a stool. "She keeps the torture room set up for you, just in case you stop by," he said darkly.

"What kind of torture?" Damon swallowed. Really and truly, he didn't care. He was only hoping to stall it out long enough for Bonnie to come to. If she could teleport herself out at least, that would be enough.

"The bad painful kind you won't need a dick for," the woman answered with a smirk.

"Really, cause if Klaus doesn't mind, I'm up for–"

"Yes, Damon, you're up for it," she sing-songed. He'd admit, she had a nice voice. Calm. _Calm torturers are always the best._ "You're up for anything and everything, farm animals included. No, Damon, we are not going to have sex. You can't seduce me with your clever charm or sculpted physique. You're in for some classical torture. Using your spine as a skipping rope kinda torture. Eyes in my jewellery box kinda torture–"

"So you like my eyes."

"They're all right."

Damon nodded as best he could in the vague direction of Elijah. "And you completely trust Mr Turncloak, here?"

"Completely trust Elijah?" She swivelled on her stool to face the Original. "Do I completely trust this well dressed bastard?" She looked him up and down in exaggerated scepticism. "Mama Original didn't raise no fools so I _know_ he knows better than to try to betray Klaus, _again_. He's not chromosome deficient, I don't think. I completely trust that he has a sense of self-preservation. I completely trust that he knows what'll become of him if he falls short on what Klaus expects of him in way of brotherly loyalty."

"Implying something, Greta?" the Original asked, tracing his fingers languidly through the pattern of tile on the counter.

"No," she shirked her shoulders, "Just saying that you raised some concerns with your absenteeism. Then you swagger in here with Damon and the witch, and I don't know quite what to make of it. Pretty sneaky, for a stand-up, reliable guy like yourself… After all, it's a couple of weeks now that no one's heard from you. You don't answer your phone, don't login on Facebook… " She took a long noisy drag of blood and swallowed. "You smell like London fog… How were the crumpets?"

Elijah looked off. "Lovely. The gentleman next door took the liberty of watering the plants."

"Good for you."

"Yeah…" Elijah smoothed out the wrinkles in his clothes. "Actually I was kinda hoping for a face to face with my brother, as pleasant as it is dealing with the secretary."

"You have an appointment?" she asked, twirling a curl of hair around her finger.

"I thought I'd just walk in."

"See… that's why you should make an appointment. He's out."

"He's never out."

"He's _out_ out."

"Oh."

"Left me in charge…"

"Oh."

"Right. And while I'm in the mood to go crazy and kill everybody. I'm thinking I'll leave you to Klaus. So, you can stay until he gets back, at least. Best I can do for you."

Elijah clapped his hands together, and slid off the stool. "I'm ever so grateful for your mercy. Where's Maddox?"

"Out."

"Right. So…" They rounded on Damon simultaneously. "Keep the witch, kill the vampire?" Elijah asked. "Or kill them both?"

Before Damon could blink, the witchy woman was squatting on her knees right there next to him and the unconscious Bonnie. The movement was so fast, he hadn't even been able to follow her with his eyes. He managed not to gasp when she popped up half a foot away from him, but just barely. "Kill Miss Baddass here?" The woman's smile faded. Her expression sobered. "Why would I want to do that? She's got talent. I have six different barriers around this place as she still managed to get through. With not only one, but two, hitchhiking vampires? The sword alone should have drained her." She brushed back Bonnie's hair. "I can see why Klaus wants her. Give her here."

"What? Just like that?" he managed a quarter smirk. "Without a fight?"

"I'm not _that _severely opposed to skipping the torture and just killing you, Damon, so let me paraphrase. We can do this the easy way…" She smiled again, this time showing off her fangs. Really neat, sharp looking devils.

"Exceptin' I'm a sucker for the hard way." _Two can play this fucking game. _I've never backed down from a fight in all my life and besides... You're a girl." Damon flashed her one of his especially crazy _toothy_ smiles. "Anything you can do…"

With that faster than light speed she had, her hand, her _claws _were inside him and around his spine. "You didn't hear?" she teased, running a claw from her free hand over the bloody wound Elijah had made, "I'm the new model."

* * *

><p><strong>AN- I have to work on the next 3 or 4 chapters at the same time to make sure i get it right, so I'll have to leave you on this cliff hanger for a while (a week, maybe). Sorry. Also, like or dislike, reviews are appreciated. Mad love for everybody who reviewed! Or added my fic for a story alert, or favourite story. Mad love for you, too.<strong>

**Still no Bonnie on the show... I find my Bamon love withering. I kinda hope Bonnie goes evil and runs away with Klaus. That'll show them to not invite her to birthday parts... lol**

**Also, I have just now noted that the file you upload to the editor in this is not uploaded perfectly. You actually have to run through the entire thing again. I had one whole line running together without spaces between the words in the first sentence paragraph so i noticed it. and there were other missing words and stuff throughout. I'm using word 2010, is it a problem from my end, or has anyone else noticed that?**

**Bottom line - thanks**


	14. Keep it real, bro

Klaus stared into the gaping white ceramic abyss that was the toilet bowl, and wondered where exactly his adventure had gone wrong.

Somewhere between theory and practice, chaos had stepped in. Stepped in and fucked up another one of his masterpiece plans.

But, say what? All's well that ends well – as someone he used to know always used to say.

And the day hadn't gone _too_ bad. Pretending to be human came easy enough to him. He could walk the walk and talk the talk as good as any blood bag. Just because he was the unnatural spawn of the underworld and ninety per cent likely to bring about the end of days for all mankind didn't mean he couldn't try his hand at humanity every now and again. There'd been a brief glitch in his psyche for half a moment centuries ago when, in fact, he'd actually _wished_ he was human. Wished that he could live and expire with the rest of them. Dark times, them days…

_Being _human, though, sucked. It sucked bullocks.

First off, he had a headache. A massive mind-bending headache. In five minutes his brain would start herniating down his nose. For sure.

Second off, Lucinda was asthmatic or some shit like that. By the tobacco stains on her fingernails, he'd guess she was a pack a day smoker, which would make her affliction more like emphysema… or bronchitis. Whatever. Bottom line – he was having a little difficulty in the fresh breath department ever since the impromptu front lawn barbecue. And the lovely toilet bowl aroma was not encouraging.

And third off, the witch in whose body he was stuck turned out to be emo intolerant. Or Jeremy intolerant. Or maybe just human meat intolerant.

It killed him seeing good food go to waste, but never the less he flushed the toilet and watched his meal swirl around and disappear into the unknown, the taste of teenage testosterone and bile lingering on his taste buds. "Isn't the boy supposed to hold the girl's hair while she pukes?" he mumbled at Stefan, trying to overcome the acid burn in his throat. Vomiting up one's guts might look like fun on TV, but in real life… Ugh. He was sure the woman had lost something important. A lung, perhaps.

"Only when the girl's an actual girl," Stefan quipped. Because Stefan, the ultimate master of quips and snarky one-liners can only be expected to quip.

Klaus rolled his eyes. Or his eyes rolled on their own accord, he couldn't tell. He'd lost essential electrolytes in the puke and was the teeniest bit lightheaded. "Keep that attitude up and I'll compel you again. We could have had a moment…" he trailed as he got to his knees shakily. Lucinda had weak knees too. Rheumatic knees. On the surface, she had the runway model look down but from the inside, he could tell. She was one big bag of festering disease. Already, a touch of arthritis was creeping in. Some astigmatism in the eyes, a muscular discomfort in the back and something low in his belly he was starting to suspect was a cramp… Festering dens of disease, they all were, _yet they protest so much at their release…_ He rinsed his mouth in the faucet, gargled a bit and spit up little bits and pieces of the meat that had tasted so good but done him wrong. "It's too late now, anyways. You may have to refrigerate the rest of our tender, unseasoned friend. My picnic days are over, I fear." He'd wasted enough time in Mystic Falls. More than enough. There were other things he could be doing, surely, besides cooking boys on the front lawn. "Or maybe I could get some foil, wrap it up to go, you think?"

"I don't think so. Elena might like to have something to bury…" Another quip from the vampire with tousled, chestnutty hair.

"Oh yes… She fancies cemeteries, that one." He sprinkled his face and dabbed at it with someone's towel. Alaric's, by the musky scent of Axe body spray. "I will never understand what you see in her. Besides her resemblance to Katerina, the Whore of Ages. I mean, you show up in Mystic Motherfucking Falls and happen across these lovelies. There's Goldilocks – a classical beauty with a wood nymphy appeal. Bonnie – with her sexy-cute librarian-cheerleader-voodoo priestess thing… And Elena – the less hot, less happy, ten times less interesting version of You Know Who and you pick her? Walk me through that."

"Nothing really to it. Some people prefer simple."

"Well, she's simple." He took a mouthful of Listerine, gargled, gargled again and spat. "Haven't seen a girl that simple since 1326. They used to make her give BJs in the barn. We called her Gummy–"

"Why are you doing this?"

"What?" He wasn't doing anything, far as he knew, except trying to get a rise out of the do-gooder.

"All of this." Stefan pointed to the toilet. "I know you're crazy but you seem especially unhinged right now. All this looking for Bonnie? What's Bonnie to you? You could have snatched her away at any point in time so where's all this desperation coming from?"

_It's coming from the fact that witches are the only people I can successfully convert into hybrids, Jackass. _"It's not like you lot'll miss her. In fact, I'm considering this a rescue mission. A pre-emptive rescue mission."

Stefan's forehead furrowed impossibly, "What?"

"Remember Gloria?Greta's dad? Greta's brother? Gretta? Maddox? Bree? Sheila? You and your brother, demented fucks as you are, get some sick thrill out of offing witches. It's only a matter of time before Bonnie follows suit if I leave her here. I can so see one of you guys stabbing her in the neck."

"Gloria was gonna–"

"Was gonna what? You killed her for nothing."

"I didn't kill her. That was Katherine."

"Same diff, Stef."

"So you want to add Bonnie to your menagerie?"

"You make it sound so kinky, but yes. It's time I started considering other avenues of hybrid mass production. It's recently come to my attention that I may be going about this the entirely wrong way. I've been trying this procreation thing via the new age methodology, but methinks the time doth come to return to basics. The old Seed and Womb trick."

"You don't mean–"

"I mean exactly what you think I mean."

"You want to use Bonnie to be your Baby Mama?"

"When you say it like that it sounds… exactly correct. Yes."

Stefan seemed to take a moment to choose his next words carefully. "Why not use Greta? I can't imagine her not jumping at the opportunity."

Or not. Could there be a man in the world more annoying than Stefan? Always fussing and asking questions. Like Nancy Drew with balls. _Presumptuous fucking bastard. _"One of these days somebody's going to take a hot crotchet needle to your eardrums… and your eyes. Try to remember that you are alive by my mercy, Stef, and that your continued survival hinges on my goodwill towards you."

"If your goodwill hinges on me helping you kidnap and violate Bonnie then–"

"Violate? Twenty-first century, Stef. No one says violate anymore. And I'm not going to violate her. I'm going to rescue her from this morbid rat-hole and carry her away to a place where it's Witch Appreciation Day every day. And on some random one of those Witch Appreciation days I'm going to impregnate her, then we're all going to hold out breaths for nine months, give or take a couple to accommodate for however fucking long the gestation period of a hybrid foetus is. If it works with minimal complications, then hip hooray. I mean, what can go wrong? The only thing I'm guessing is that the baby might have to eat its way out of the mother. Like in Alien. But besides that…"

"Bonnie'll never go for that."

_Because why? _It wasn't as if she was harnessed to Mystic Falls by the spinal cord. The girl was already homeless, friendless and effectively parentless, anyways. There was no one knocking her doors down in the courting of her. She wasn't going to get voted homecoming queen. "What's keeping her here? Watching you and Gummy profess your endless love to each other - it gets old, Stef. Should she stay to watch over Goldilocks and Fido?" He flipped his hair over his shoulder as femininely as he was able. "A girl had needs, Stef. And Bonnie has a particular need that–" His phone started to ring. The vibration felt nice against his thigh, so he left it for a little bit while the ringtone played out. Queen of the Night, by pre-crack Whitney Houston. Surprisingly catchy song… "Darling?" he answered.

"Good news first or bad news?" Greta asked, her voice with a definite edge to it.

"I'm the king of the world, sweetheart. Bad news doesn't exist for me anymore. Shoot."

"I've got your girl."

They were going to have to get into the habit of using peoples' names. "Which girl exactly? The pole dancer from–"

"The one plotting your demise? The one resurrecting Geraldine? The one you're actively pursuing across the globe? Short, kinda pretty."

"Didn't know you were getting in on the hunt, love." In fact he'd left very specific orders for her _not_ to get in on the hunt. Which part of '_guard_ _my_ _body'_ had she not understood?

"Didn't," she snapped. "She _came_ to me."

"Like out of thin air?"

"Teleported is the technical term."

Huh. He'd have to apologize to the Scooby gang, then. Maybe. Except they were mostly dead. "Teleported into my place? What about all the barriers you supposedly put up for the expressed purpose of teleportation prevention?"

"The force is strong in her, what can I say?"

_Greta might be a nerd,_ he realised shockingly. His mouth opened soundlessly. He'd heard her reference Star Wars lore three times now… How many Star Wars references one had to make to meet the Nerd Criteria, he didn't know for sure, but he was starting to suspect that Greta was very near the limit. She'd found a strange joy in that absurdist movie, Transformers. Rewatched the Lord of the Rings every week or so… Might even speak elvish… In a thousand years' time, she might become a full blown geek. _Do I mind?_ He could dress her up in glasses, make her do her hair like Padme, or do some Hawkgirl cosplay… "Why would she do that – teleport herself into the lion's mouth? Suicidal? She didn't seem–"

"They need your guts, remember?"

He sighed. His adventure had come to an end. He'd had fun… And he'd have the drive back up to Canada with Maddox, so maybe they could turn that into some road trip fun, but otherwise he was homebound. Homebound to deal with impregnating a seventeen year old girl... How Stefan and Damon managed to maintain a fascination with the teenaged variety was beyond him. The fun he used to have at stealing virginities had waned eight or nine centuries aback. The 'oh, don't hurt me' shtick was tiresome, but he'd have to deal with it. Run some pornography in the background and go away mentally to his special place. He might be able to rope Greta into it and make it a threesome…maybe. Revive Lucinda and who knows… Foursome with three witches. And there was Anastasia in the bunker – four witches... "Okay, hit me with the bad news."

"That was the bad news. The good news is that she didn't come alone. She brought Elijah and Damon along for the ride."

A bluejay landed on the windowsill, unaware that that the only thing between it and the Bringer of Doom was a panel of flimsy glass. "How is that good news? You got it inverted, love. Bonnie's the good news. Elijah's gone Iscariot again and Damon the dude that broke your neck."

"And you need to remind me because I'm stupid? I went to college."

Klaus sighed, again. It seemed all he'd done since answer the phone was sigh. Hybrids weren't supposed to sigh. Ever. "Yes. 3.9 GPA. Double major. Doing very well for yourself up until I seduced you into enlisting for my army of the evil undead. I get it. Back on topic – what the fuck? Where exactly are you right now?"

"Home."

"Which home? The one my brother, Damon the Devil and Witchbitch just broke in to and entered?"

"Yep."

_God_… She's dead in the water. Dead, dead, dead… "Why in God's name are you still there? _And_ _calling_ _me_? For mercy's sake, tell me that you're getting really good reception despite being in the elevator going down to the ground floor, about to jump in the taxi you already called."

"Well, your body's here. Not like I can just leave it behind."

_No, we can't have that… _"So if I get this straight, the four of you are doing what exactly? Playing All Fours?"

"We're trying to re-enact the human centipede."

_Aww, trying to make me jealous? _"Without me?"

"Elijah's acting shady but not more that always. And Damon's been unconscious for hours."

"They've been there hours and you're just now giving me the heads up?" When the master servant line gets too blurry, the first thing to go is discipline. Sleep with somebody once or twice… and all the training goes to waste. People start flouncing orders…

"When I say hours, I mean, seconds." She didn't even try to make the lie convincing.

"…Right."

"And Bonnie's unconscious. What can possibly go wrong, I ask semi-sarcastically and risk invoking a cliché. Relax. I can more than handle a noob vamp like Damon. Bonnie's a super-witch, but she's out like … out like Mohammed Ali playing Jenga. I'm handling this."

_Noob vamp, says the noob hybrid. _"Making jokes on people with Parkinson's, love?" He could feel her bad mood wafting across the states between them, a lot of turmoil roiling around in her head.

The woman sighed. A lot of sighing going on between them these days. A lot of sighing going on between him and almost everybody else. "It's Damon. I want to kill him–"

"Please do. Broomstick through the heart ought to do it."

"But, I want to torture him too." And she giggled there, as giddily as the antichrist come the end of days. "I want to make iced tea with his blood. Flay the skin off him and make oven mitts…"

_Girl is straight up crazy. And evil._

"That's why we installed the torture room in the first place," she continued.

Not really. He'd always planned to give Damon a swift death. The guy was a veritable jerkoff but he had heart. The room was for the little Katerina, for whenever their paths crossed again, and Elena, probably. Either one of them would do fine. The nasty fine print about needing her alive was bothersome, but it'll still allow him a little torture time… "Why don't you just kill him? Have you ever seen a James Bond movie? This is where all the villains make their mistake. Kill first, torture after."

"Come on. I took Henchman 101 freshman year."

"Really, cause you're kind of dropping the ball these days. When I say make a place impregnable, I mean teleportation-proof too."

"If it was teleportation proof, then you'd still be hunting your witch all over surburbia. And by the way, where exactly are you? You have to get back to–" She paused and the line went silent for a while which gave him a chance to eavesdrop just a bit. There was the background hum of traffic, a car horn, the measured footfall of his brother, a frying pan on the stovetop and the sizzle of hot butter… "You're not _cooking_ for the bastards, are you?"

She laughed, the joke was that good. "What's wrong with a little dinner between friends?"

"Friends with culinary benefits? Doesn't exist, love."

"Really? Cause your brother asked me to help him tenderise some meat–"

"Stop trying at the innuendos, love. It's annoying and you're not good at it. How was Letterman last night, by the way? I ended up breaking the tv here when I killed Buffyman– "

"Alaric?"

"Buffyman."

"And now what? You sound bored. How's it going in MMF?"

"Grating, as usual. Except…" _Should I?_

"Except?"

"Except, remember when I suggested that we summon Jaxxon?"

"Yeah."

"The one demon that Geraldine was never able to defeat? The one that killed her, in fact? You know – fight fire-fighters with fire? Fight demon slayer with demon? And you said it was a bad idea because in order to control Jaxxon the witch that summoned him would be forever bound to him body and soul – remember that?"

"Yeah."

"So, yeah… I did the spell. Who the fuck cares about Lucinda's body and soul anyway, right?"

"You did the spell?"

"Well, yeah. I'm pretty good with Latin, it turns out."

"You need sacrifices for–"

"–it to work, Yeah. I've got a pretty good GPA too, love. Majored in Occult Magic. Minored in Blood Sacrifices. One by fire, one by ice and one by blood. I barbecued Bonnie's boyfriend. I put the werewolf in the freezer and I slit Goldy Sue's throat for the blood."

"Did it work?" A half-reproaching, half keenly-interested note to her voice.

"Well… That's the thing. All's quiet on the front so far. No Jaxxon in sight. So I'm thinking I didn't do the sacrificing right. I should have slit the boy's throat instead and roasted the vampire, you think?"

"Obviously what I think doesn't matter to you."

"I pull my hair in frustration, Greta. The opinion of the henchman rarely if ever matters. He's there to take orders. So take some fucking orders – kill Damon now and use the dagger on Elijah."

"Why? If they can kill me, I'll let 'em. I'm tired of this blood-sucking half ass life. It's like I'm not even human anymore–"

_Of course you're not fucking human anymore! _Klaus hung up. What's so fucking great about being human? 'Human' meant diarrhoea and death, coughs, cold, lung cancer, _breast_ cancer, haemorrhoids, menstrual cramps, menopause, grey hair, fungal infections, yeast infections, cold sores, glaucoma, high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, pneumonia, tuberculosis, bed sores, broken bones, polio, leprosy… and asthma. He flung the phone at Stefan. "Your brother's back at my place, trespassing."

"I heard."

"Eavesdropper. I'm gonna head up and kill him."

Stefan shrugged.

"Then I'm gonna violate the witch until she's pregnant. Wanna come along and watch?"

"Meh… I think I'll stay. Take Jeremy off the grill before the police show up, maybe. You know how they get about murder and cannibalism in this place. Kind of a big no-no."

_Police? _"Oh yeah, about that. Me and Maddox had a little party in the station before we came here. He got a little carried away. Can't remember all the names but we killed Caroline's mum, for sure. She was a shitty sheriff anyway. You might want to get into that line of work." He flipped his hair again, enjoying the feel of it on his skin and even more, the way Stefan's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "I can totally see you in a uniform and badge. A hundred and fifty years' experience as the fun police should look good on the resume." He fixed Stefan with steady eye contact. "Don't clean up. I spent a lot of time getting the house to look like this. Take all the items for resurrecting Geraldine that you have so far, put them in an inconspicuous bagpack – use your schoolbag, I know you have one – and bring them to me. When Elena shows up, shave her head bald and feed her the rest of her brother. Then cut off her hands. At the elbows, and make her eat them. Barbecue, grilled, fried, make her pick. And there might be a demon wandering loose somewhere, so look out for that. It should respond to the name Jaxxon, I don't know. Should be human looking, too." Then he hugged the guy. He'd never have a less gay chance to do it. "Later, bro."


	15. Rescue Dusk

As far as torture sessions went, Damon had had worse. Most torturers tended to go for the easy way out – crank up the pain to the max and wait for the victim to crack – but Greta'd opted for a different gameplan. Something more psychological than physical. Personally, he was more of a 'rip your beating heart out' kinda guy. If you want to kill somebody, there was no real upside to dragging it out. She could have set him on fire and dustbustered his ashes hours ago. She could have run a big ol' stake through his heart eons ago… Instead she'd settled for little things like perforating his eardrums, putting out his eyes… Repeatedly smashing his ribs in with a crowbar… Shattering his kneecaps.

He settled into the chair - the nails in the seat needed a little getting used to – and started on the meal she'd prepared for him. Liver. His favourite.

_Mmm_… The woman could cook.

Of all the woman he'd loved, lost and killed in his years, he'd been yet to run across one that could cook. _Really_ cook. He'd never really set much stock into it – his dealings never went to that 'dinner' stage – but now… he was starting to warm to it. He could taste the milk on his tongue and the sweet sugary goodness of butter and flour… The seasoning, too, was superb. Cayenne pepper, onion powder, garlic, chilli powder, a leaf or two of thyme, sweet basil and bay leaf… _Mmm_. Not to mention the actual onions.

Mmm. Liver and onions could never taste better.

He stabbed at the medium rare meat with his fork and sliced away with his knife. It was a plastic fork, and a plastic knife too, so the slicing took a little effort. He cut a piece and chewed. _Delicious. Most fucking delicious thing I ever ate._

The only thing lacking was ambience. The cleavers, the ice pick, the foot press, a queer looking foot-long needle, the branding irons… The scent of rust and old blood was too strong. The room was too much like a Middle Ages torture shop for his liking, but a little music could have done wonders to remedy that. Some Sting, maybe… UB40, perhaps? Something with a little jive and old school feeling. Nothing too pop-tacular. No Gaga. Something mellow, like a sad Keane song. Soothing... like Celine Dion… Elton John… Muse.

"They will not force us," he hummed unintelligently as he chewed. "They will stop degrading us. The will not control us. We will be victorious. So come on." _Come on, fuckers. Bring it. _

"Mmm," he cut a larger piece and put it in his mouth. _Yummy_.

The glare on the glass was obscuring the photo in the frame but he had the faces memorised, more or less. One middle-aged glasses-wearing tool and his tool son, grinning like assholes against the beautiful green backdrop of some fucking botanical garden or the other.

Funny thing about life, how you could be happy-go-lucky blowing bubbles one day, and dead the next. Funny, funny thing, life.

Even funnier – death. You never ever saw it coming. Like the ending of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. He sure as hell hadn't been expecting his dear old dad to fire a round into the chest of him the firstborn son. That had been a plot twist beyond anything Shyamalan could dream of.

_Beyond you too, Hitchcock._

Witches, he'd thought though, would be the exclusion to the rule. Witches, he'd always figured, would be like the critics who got invited to the early screening session. Clairvoyance should work like that.

_Don't drink the eggnog. It's spiked and you'll get so wasted, by 11.50 you'll piss yourself. _

_Don't take a cab. There'll be traffic. _

_Don't mess with Damon today. He'll kill you. _

Something along those lines. And if a man who can see the future, still proceeds to act in such a way as to bring about his own demise, then you could hardly blame the poor murderer at all. Mr Martin and his shady son had got what was coming to them.

Still, he supposed, it would behove him to come up with something contrite to say about poor dead Mr Martin and his poor dead sad son. It would appease Greta in some way if he rustled up some paltry utterance about condolences and acceptable sympathies…

Or a joke. He could go that way, too. A sexually oriented joke. Incestuously oriented…

Something nice and besmirching of their memory. Something to bring some tears to that face. Something to snap her out of her Silence of the Lambs routine. Something to make the witchy little lamb get sloppy and slack off the heavy ass compulsion she had him under. He'd never been compelled before and he didn't like it one fucking bit.

He swallowed and took another mouthful, clearing his plate bit by bit. _Pity vampires don't eat more often_. Crying shame, he thought. Sure, he might chug down a beer or two, or take down some fries with Alaric, but when last had he had a decent meal? A professional sampling of the culinary arts? A damn crying shame, feasting on dirty bar nuts and salty fish sticks.

_Can Bonnie cook? _

A century and a half of unflagging devotion and he didn't know whether or not Katherine could cook.

Elena could cook basic things… probably. He'd never seen her really go at it in the kitchen, except for salad tossing.

Bonnie… A girl like her, homeless, parentless, guardianless… What would be the odds of Bonnie being able to cook? By rights she ought to, elsewise she'd have starved. But on the other hand, zero parental supervision meant no policies against junk food. Most like, she was fuelled on potato ships, pizza and 7-up. She'd have to work out a lot with a diet like that, though. Unless witches had super high metabolic rates… _I wonder if she's still alive…_

_If she's dead, what do I do?_

It had been his play, more or less, having her teleport them directly to Klaus' headquarters. He couldn't even remember the logic behind it, except that it had something to do with the element of surprise.

_If she's dead, what do I do?_

Their little lop-sided romance hadn't really blossomed into anything, except a lick, a kiss and some broken bones. And all that had been from Mags side of it, mostly. He'd had the chain in his hand when she'd licked him, so there was that but otherwise… the pickings had been slim. She'd taken his blood, Elijah's blood, and done God knew what with Stefan… Not exactly what he'd had in mind at the get-go.

_If she's dead, with that amount of vampire blood in her, she's 99.9% sure to come back as a vampire. _

_And I get my seventeen year old Bonnie forever without being directly responsible._

Mmm… Someone on the other side of the door put on some music. Classical music.

Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin…

That's what he was talking about. Some fucking ambience. He bit into one of the tomato slices, letting the juice run down his chin while he savoured the taste. "Mmm…"

The door creased open slowly and Elijah stepped into the room with a finger on his lips, eyebrows raised and a notepad in hand.

Damon tore off another chunk of meat and chewed, waiting for it. The dropping of the other shoe.

The Original pushed aside the picture frame, set his notepad down in the space and scribbled – PLAN B

_Plan B? _Damon added a question mark.

BONNIE'S STILL OUT. KLAUS' BODY IS HERE IN THE COFFIN. HE'S POSSESSING LUCY THE COUSIN IN MYSTIC FALLS. THIS IS OUR BEST CHANCE.

I CAN'T MOVE FROM THIS CHAIR. SHE PUT A SPELL ON ME. OR COMPELLED ME. NOT SURE.

SHE DOES THAT, Elijah wrote back.

HOW THE FUCK IS SHE THAT STRONG? Damon scribbled. SHE'S A NEWBIE VAMPIRE AND SHE KICKED MY ASS!

KLAUS' BLOOD, Elijah replied, taking his turn with the pen. SHE HAS MORE OF IT IN HER SYSTEM THAN KLAUS HIMSELF.

WHY?

COMPLICATED. TWO-WAY STOCKHOLM SYNDROME, Elijah wrote and added a shrug.

I KILLED HER THE FIRST TIME. IT'S YOUR TURN.

CAN'T KILL HER. He shook his head in a definite 'no'.

HOW NOT, MR BADASS ORIGINAL?

I CAN'T.

STAKE HER, OR RIP HER HEART OUT. EASY.

NOT EASY, JACKASS. BITCH IS STILL A WITCH. ANEURYSM POWERS, REMEMBER?

SO WHAT THEN?

CHCL3 Elijah wrote.

Damon added a question mark.

TRICHLOROMETHANE.

Damon added a question mark.

CHLOROFORM.

THAT WON'T WORK, RETARD. He wrote 'retard' extra large. YOU CAN'T CHLOROFORM A WITCH.

HOW DO YOU THINK KLAUS GOT HER IN THE FIRST PLACE?

IT WON'T WORK NOW. VAMPIRES DON'T BREATHE. He underlined 'NOW' and 'VAMPIRES'.

APPARENTLY NEWBIE HYBRID VAMPIRES WHO USED TO BE HUMAN NOT TO LONG AGO DO. SHE HAS A HEARTBEAT. HOW DID YOU MISS THAT? Three more question marks followed to make a point.

Damon pushed back from his chair and raised his shirt to expose the ugly mottling bruise on his right side. I WAS DISTRACTED.

THAT'S NOT BAD. FOR A TORTURE SESSION, YOU'RE IN GOOD CONDITION.

Damon pointed at the plate. THIS IS MY LIVER. He circled the word 'MY'. BITCH RIPPED OUT MY LIVER AND COOKED IT. He drew asterisks around 'COOKED'.

WHY ARE YOU EATING IT?

BECAUSE IT TASTES GOOD. WHY THE FUCK YOU THINK? IT'S EITHER EAT THIS OR… He pointed to his crotch.

Elijah grinned. WHAT DID YOU DO TO PISS HER OFF?

Damon pointed to the photo of the Martins. KILLED HER FAMILY.

YEAH… THAT TENDS TO NEVER SIT WELL WITH PEOPLE.

AND I MIGHT HAVE TOLD HER SHE WAS 'FULL OF HERSELF'.

Elijah added a question mark.

HENCE SHE'S GIVING ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO GET– he wrote, then drew in an arrow back up to 'FULL', scratched out the 'HER' in HERSELF and jutted 'MY' over it.

CREATIVE.

NOT AS CREATIVE AS YOU CARRYING A BOTTLE OF CHLOROFORM ON YOU.

I LIKE BEING PREPARED.

YOU HAVE EXPERIENCE IN CHLOROFORMING GIRLS?

NUMBER ONE SOLUTION TO A WITCH PROBLEM.

DO YOU WANT A PIECE? Damon offered up a chunk of meat on the end of his plastic disposable fork.

NO.

IT'S GOOD.

I DON'T DOUBT, BUT FIRST THINGS FIRST. I'M GOING TO WAIT BEHIND THE DOOR, AND WHEN SHE COMES BACK IN I'M GOING TO JUMP HER AND KNOCK HER OUT.

HOWEVER YOU DEEM BEST. I GIVE WAY TO YOUR EXPERTISE. WHERE'S THE BITCH NOW?

ON THE PHONE. WILL BE BACK ANY MINUTE.

JUST FOR THE RECORD, THE NEXT TIME YOU SWITCH BANDWAGONS OR PRETEND TO SWITCH BANDWAGONS, I WILL KILL YOU.

CAN YOUR THREATS BE ANY EMPTIER?

…

His bonds went loose as the witch lost consciousness, but he finished his meal regardless. It was better to know that he had eaten his own liver, than to think about it going down a waste disposal chute, or worse, winding up in a Tupperware bowl at the bottom of the refrigerator going bad one day at a time.

Elijah, as it turned out, shockingly, was a real professional at chloroforming young women. He'd done it too fast for Damon to see the technique, but however he'd done it, the witch was out. KO.

"So what do you do now," Damon asked, wiping his mouth in a napkin. "Raping time?"

"I'm not a rapist," the Original retorted flatly as he hefted the girl over his shoulder.

"Call it like I see it, E-man."

"She's unconscious. We needed her to be unconscious. She had you _eating_ yourself – what's your problem?"

"No problem, except… I just realised why girls go to the bathroom in pairs. You're the reason they invented mace."

"You have two options, Damon. You can be grateful or you can go back to your torture tea-party."

"Yeah…" Damon raked his fingers through his hair, checking for any missing chunks or palpable dents in his skull, following Elijah as he moved through the living room and dropped the body of the witch in the lounge chair. She was pretty, in a kinda way. Small, and he noted that he was yet to see a _big_ witch. Too much hair for his taste. Too bitchy-looking. Even with her eyes closed, she seemed dangerous, and bitchy. _Bitchy to the bone. _ "Answer me this real quick. Greta. Didn't really get a chance to know her before I killed her, but was she always this… insane? Or is that a hybrid side effect, and if so, can I expect this level of crazy from Klaus now?"

"Greta…" Elijah started and sighed… "You can't really judge her for what she does. She's… She used to be… a child. Martin had his son and the two of them were close. The two of them bonded over their magic. The boy had a natural talent for it. Potential to be as strong as the father, so the two of them were very close and Greta was on the outside of that circle. As a witch, she was probably a four out of ten. No spells, no grimoire, nothing. Then up pops Klaus with his penchant for runts of the litter… He and she have a sort of father-daughter relationship–"

"A Medieval European father-daughter relationship, you mean to say. America passed laws against… this," he made a swooping gesture with both his arms, "years ago. My only concern is – can we use her as a hostage? Can we kidnap her, stash her somewhere and gain some kind of leverage?"

"I can't see it working. She's a pet. Pets don't make good hostages."

"Pet witch?"

"Have you never had one?"

"You've seen my witch. She's kinda wild. Bites… Not what I'd call domesticated."

"Five steps to taming a witch, my young friend. The first is isolation. Remove the witch from everything and everybody that she knows. Second step – make them kill somebody. Once they get blood on their hands, and realise just how easy and inevitable it is they become a lot less _reserved_. Third step – facilitate a need. They have to need you in some way, financially, socially, sexually, whatever angle you can find to exploit. Fourth step – they help you feed. Help you lure victims. Fifth step – they let you feed on them. Not only let you feed on them, but encourage it. When a witch _wants_ you to feed on her, that's when you know you have her."

"And you've formulated this five step method off of personal experience?" There'd been a time when he used to respect Elijah…

"How else?"

"I still think we can get some mileage out of taking her hostage. She's a pet, but a pet he's gone to a lot of trouble to keep alive. I mean, I killed her, and he brought her back as a super hybrid. Obviously, he cares."

"You don't get it. Greta and Maddox are the only two hybrids he's been able to make. The first time, they came back as vampires, but they weren't dead. They came back to life. Living vampires. Pulse, heartbeat, fully functional body, except with a need to feed." The grandfatherly vampire pinched the bridge of his nose in a gesture that screamed of mental fatigue. "Then he gave them his hybrid blood, and voila. There you have it. Hybrid witch. On one hand they're stronger than him, but there's that uncertainty that makes him uneasy. There are no truly immortal creatures with a heartbeat. What's dead is dead and can never die again, except… they're not dead. There's no protocol on how to deal with hybrid witches; there magic keeps them _alive_. And Klaus only has two. Using one as a hostage might be like robbing a bank and trying to use the money to stop the police from shooting you. Most like, they just shoot you harder and faster."

"What do we do with her, then?"

"I know what I'm going to do," Elijah answered drawing a pocketblade over the girl's wrist. "I'm draining her. Join in if you like, but you're not going to taste better than this for some time."

"Sure thing, bro." He lit the stove and put on a kettle of hot water for the vampire's tea. After a hefty meal, the Original liked a cup of mint. "Just let me check on Bonnie if you don't mind."

"Klaus knows we're here. So we don't have time to waste. Wake Bonnie up. At this point, she's our only weapon. No more fuck-ups. Get that?"

Something hummed near his ear, musical and light like a 512 tuning fork. His body tensed for a while as he waited… waited… and nothing. "As if you have to tell me," he said as he raised the flame, "I'm the one fresh out of torture."

7.22, the clock read.


	16. All good things

7.22, the clock read. A Felix Cat clock; the black tail swished and counted the seconds down.

_Time flies when you're having fun. _

Hours had passed with him shut up in that room. Hours had passed since he'd seen her, too. Some of the insane panic had left him, some of the blood stains had evaporated. Bit by bit, his liver was growing back, restoring the familiar, dull weight in his right side under his ribs. His balance was still a little off, and there was the occasional stab of pain in his eyeballs when he tried to look to the right, but otherwise… he was on the mend. As was she.

She was looking at herself in the mirror again, turning her head at different angles, tilting her chin… Going up on tiptoes to get in closer. Against the stark white tile of the floor, she was a vision of colour in Elijah's blood stained, used-to-be-white shirt. She spared him a glance out of the corner of her eyes for a fraction of a second before she returned her attention to herself. "Of all the men I ever imagined being half naked with in a hotel room, how come I end up with you?"

"You imagine being half naked in hotel rooms with men beside me? Unbreak my heart." He added a smirk at the end, to make himself look less scared than he was. He'd suffered enough at the hands of a woman for one day. With Bonnie, he'd get a kiss out of it, maybe, if she felt like… but pain was pain in the end. No such thing as good pain. She could kill him right there in that room. Burn him to ash and flush his ashes down the toilet like the burnt remains of a pet goldfish. She'd tried to ignite him once before… that time at the Carnival. It had hurt, but that time, he'd known she wouldn't have gone through with it. He'd known _that _Bonnie. He'd known that Bonnie's limits. He'd known that Bonnie's peeves. _This_ Bonnie? "Killer nosebleed you had this morning. Had me going for a while. But I'm glad to see you still in the world of the living."

She shrugged. "You know how it is."

"Not really, no." He closed the door behind him. Elijah was on the other side, lurking with his victim like a sex offender, listening in to everything they'd say. A plywood door wasn't going to do much in way of privacy. The old fuck could probably seethrough _concrete_, what with his Clark Kent jaw and DC comic hairdo. "Explain it to me," he said, propping himself up against the door ever so casually. "I lost a couple thousand brain cells today so forgive me if I'm a little slow on the uptake."

"Nothing to forgive," she flashed him a quick smile, "Everybody knows you're a little slow."

"I gave that to you."

"That and a cursed necklace."

"It looks good on you."

"Mags thinks so, too. So I guess once the two of you like it, that's all that matters."

His arms folded against his chest. Defensively? He didn't know. "You can always take it off."

"Can't."

"Won't, you mean?"

"Can't. After you tried that stunt last time, I'm not allowed to take it off."

"Not allowed?"

She grunted. "If I'm going to do this, I have to go all the way. I can't take her off and put her back on. You wanted it on me anyway, so you win."

"I win what?"

"Whatever game you were playing." She turned away from the mirror over the face basin, allowing him his first complete look at her. The pupil of one of her eyes had gone red, the other remained muddily green. Streaks of red ran through her hair, contrasting in an ugly way with the black. The eyebrows were higher, more arched, sharper. A mole, no… He zoomed to her, cupping his face in her hands… There it was. On her right cheek, under the red eye – the scar. Magwyr's scar. A small, almost negligible imperfection, a half-moon line running under her eye…

"Bonnie!"

She pushed him off easily. "You win!" she shouted.

"Win what?" Damon straightened himself. "You think I wanted you to get possessed by Mags? Take off the chain!"

"I can't! I need it! I need–"

"You have the power of a hundred witches inside you–"

"And I can't use it! I don't know how to use it! Not their power, not Mags' power. Not even Elijah's blood. I don't know what I'm doing!"

"Bonnie–"

"You win!" she cut him off. "You win, Damon. I'm not trying to blame you for anything. I'm not asking you to feel bad about anything. Out of everyone, despite the fact that you're a real dick, you actually step up to the plate and do what needs to get done. So right now, even though I kinda hate you, I'm gonna say thanks. Thanks for giving me the chance to make good. I'm going to work with the idea that I can get past hating you. Whatever I did to make you hate me, I apologize. Let's grow up and move on and focus all the hate on Klaus."

Something was wrong.

He wasn't speaking to Magwyr the Red. This was Bonnie. _Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie. _He took a step back, then two steps forward. Then he stopped. "What are you doing, Bonnie?"

"What you want me to do," she answered. Her face was almost happy. Almost smiling. Almost lifelike. "What everybody needs me to do. Let's face it, you had it right all along. I'm a shitty witch. I'm a master at floating feathers and making lights blink. I give you aneurysms and set you on fire, but when the time comes to step up to the plate, I fuck up. I let my own grandmother die. I let Jenna die. Meanwhile I let Klaus do his ritual and become a hybrid. I told you to trust me, everyone was depending on me and I fucked it up."

"Elijah–"

"I could've done it without Elijah's help, but I chickened out. I got selfish, and because of that people died. Stefan had to suffer, Stefan's victims had to suffer, because I didn't deliver–"

He shook her at the shoulders. "Save your confessions for a priest or a cab driver. I–"

"I'm sorry," she put her hands on his, "but I'm taking responsibility for it. Better late than never."

"You can't do more than you're already doing. You have to allow yourself–"

"Magwyr can do it." Her mismatched eyes fixed on his. Her frown-prone mouth was set firm. There were littler changes that he hadn't notice before. Magwyr's freckles for one, barely noticeable against Bonnie's skin, but they were there… on her cheeks. Spots of red were already coming in to her good eye…

"Bonnie…"

"Magwyr can do it. She has what it takes to get it done. She can summon Geraldine, and even if that doesn't work, she has a spell that will do almost as much damage. She has more than five centuries' experience with all this macabre and magic. Half the things she tries to explain to me, I don't even understand. I've been at this for less than one year, and I'm slowing her down, so I've come up with–"

"Bonnie… You're letting her–"

"I'm giving her full control," she nodded. "She needs to be in the driver seat, otherwise we're all going to die. I'm going to step back and hand over the reins, and when it's done, I'll regain control–"

_Is she stupid? _

"Are you stupid?" he shook her. "She already has too much control over you. Your personality is being chipped away. You already have limited control and you think it's going to get better if you willingly hand over your body to her? Have you not read Harry Potter? What you're essentially trying to do is return Voldermort to a body. Remember what happened to Quirrel?"

"She can kill Klaus!" Tears were in her eyes. She pulled away from him and made slow, trudging steps toward the massive bathtub. She sat on the lip, wiping tears from her eyes before they could fall on their own. "She can do it. We need her."

"We need you."

"She can kill Klaus."

"Fuck Klaus. Half the days, I'm not sure why we even bother. The dude hasn't shown his face in ages. If you give up control of your body, Bonnie… You won't get it back until…"

"Until a hundred years later. That's the agreement me and Mags–"

"Mags and I," he corrected.

She laughed, weakly. "That's the agreement Mags and I have come to. All that remains is for the two of us to come to an agreement on one more thing."

"Something like?"

"Me." She fixed her eyes somewhere over his head. "I'll need you to control me."

"Control you?" he raised an eyebrow. "Explain what you mean by that."

She sighed. "I know you and Mags have your… thing. Or had your thing. And I know that that was way in the past. And I know about you and Elena. And while I don't condone your active hounding of your brother's girlfriend, it's your prerogative and I don't want to interfere with whatever might work out for you later down that road, but…"

"But?"

"I need you to– I want you to help me out with this. This is way out of Jeremy's territory. Help me. Mags'll do anything you ask her to do. She'll be your own personal witch. The best bodyguard blood can buy. Anything you want her to do–"

"Like a Private Dancer?"

She mumbled something and turned her body to an angle. Suddenly interested in traffic on the highway. "Just keep me from turning into some public usage sexpot."

"My own _personal_ sexpot? For a hundred years… If I understand it correctly, that's what you're offering me, right? In trade for keeping you from becoming a notoriously promiscuous lady of the night." He hitched his eyebrows up, stretched… waited a while to let the awkwardness percolate. "But there's this one problem. Why would I ever want to have sex with a woman I killed?"

"Because despite the fact that you killed her, she wants you still."

"But I don't want her. That's why I killed her. Her face annoyed me."

"Well she won't have her face, she'd have my face. More or less."

"_Your_ face annoys me."

She scoffed. "As if, Damon. I know I'm on your list."

"What list?"

"Your checklist of girls to sleep with."

"If you're on the list, you're at the bottom. Or way, way down… Matt's mom was higher than you. Caroline's mom is number 200, so you're probably on the back-up list..."

"You'd sleep with the sheriff?"

"Why not? She has a certain lesbian look to her, but once the parts function…"

"You'd do Caroline's mom, before you'd do me?"

"Caroline's mom never set me on fire."

"I'm sorry about that."

"And I can only assume she'd be a better lay than you. I know for certain that she's had sex at least once before. Virgins don't really do it for me."

"Who says I'm a virgin?"

"The phosphoric stamp on your forehead in capital letters?"

"I'm with Jeremy."

"I know."

"So who says I'm a virgin?"

"Bonnie, you could start an abstinence club. There's not one sexual thing about you. The first thing that comes to mind when I see you is Quaker Oats."

"You remind me of chewing gum."

"Gum?"

"You know, gum? Gets stuck under you shoe and you have to scrape it off?"

"Make up your mind," he mumbled, folding his arms and leaning his weight against the faucet. "You were just offering to be my sex slave for a hundred years, now you say you want to scrap me off…"

She turned again, silent for a moment. Pensive, proud, shy… "Fuck me, Damon."

"Hmm?"

"Fuck me. While I'm still me."

_Play it cool. _"Now?"

"Yeah. Mags is giving me a grace period. I figured I'd use it for a bath but since you're here, I thought…"

"You put this deal to Stefan?"

She didn't answer. Instead she eased herself up over and into the large ceramic bathtub. "Is this good for you?"

"While I'm not opposed to bathtub sex, ideally, there'd be curtains…"

"Shy?"

No, they were too high up. And the lack of curtains had a certain appeal to it. "I'm not so much in the mood. My testicles have to re-descend after my play-date today."

"Come on," she sat up, "I'll kink it up for you."

"You wouldn't know how."

"Tell me how."

"I'm thinking about it."

"Would it help if I was wet?"

"Yeah."

She turned the tap.

"Blood _bath, _get it?" He opened the tap wider and watched the blood pour into the tub, hot and steaming. Klaus might be a freak of nature…" he filled a handful of blood and brought it to his lips. _Perfect. _It was fresh, diluted with alcohol… vodka, maybe… with just a hint of vanilla… and coconut. He put his mouth to the tap. _Wow_. It was the cocktail of all cocktails… There was some werewolf in it. Four or five different werewolves… Some witch blood too, two witches. Elijah's blood… Two other vampires… Something otherworldly that he could only guess at. And a whole lot of vodka. _Pipe-born Heaven. _"How do you think–," he swallowed and tried to wipe his chin, licking his fingers. "How do you think something like this works?"

Bonnie was still in the tub, her face blank and expressionless, not looking at him or anything in particular. She wasn't even looking out the glass at the blinking automobile lights snaking up the congested highway. She was just blank. "There'd be a tank, I guess."

"A tank?"

"Somewhere accessible enough for him to keep it filled up."

"Classy."

"I don't see how it would work, though," she frowned as the tub filled around her. "As a vampire, I get that he drinks blood, and I get why he'd want to have a large amount of blood on stand-by, but why bathe in it? Does he bathe in it and then drink it? That's not hygienic. And it makes less sense to bathe in it and not drink it. If you go to the trouble of having a blood bath, what's the point of rinsing it off? This is disgusting." 

Damon wanted to smile. He wanted to laugh. Klaus might be his hero. It wasn't like the guy only ever took baths in blood. There was another tap with running hot water. But this setup… Nice. Sexy as fucking hell.

He squatted down on his knees with a sigh. His priorities were getting muddled in a fast and dangerous way. One minute he was drawing up blueprints with Elijah and snuffing girls out, the next he was drinking blood and vodka out of a bathroom pipe. He'd started the day with one sole desire to kill Klaus and how many ever hours later, he wanted to shake the guy's hand. None of them spoke, and for a long tense while, there was only the sound of blood splashing on ceramic.

"I still can't figure out how this works," she said, an uncomfortable smile on her face. "I don't understand what he gets out of it."

_I have an idea… _There were little flecks of blood in her eyelashes. The ends of her hair were starting to get wet. Even as the blood level rose lapping against her thighs, even as the ends of her shirt clung to the curve of her ass, even as her chest heaved as she breathed in the alcohol vapour… He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the world, the drum of her heartbeat, the sound of the air going in and out of her lungs… For half a second, he felt his fangs grow out and his eyes darken. Just half a second. "Why are you still sitting here in this?" He looked down at his toes. At the legs of the bathtub. At the congested traffic miles away. "What are you doing to me, Bonnie? We have to go up against Klaus. We have to deal with his witches. You and Elijah can actually take care of yourselves, I'm the weak one here. I'm the vulnerable one here. And you're coming at me with a sledgehammer…"

"I'm not doing anything to you, Damon."

"You're destroying me."

"Me? I'm heartbeats away from giving my body over to Mags, and I'm doing that for you, and Elena and Mystic Falls and the whole fucking world. As soon as I give in, Mags takes over and I'm gone. She's promised to trade back with me after a century. One whole century, and I know that doesn't sound like too much to you, but I'm seventeen. Seventeen. If I kept my grades up, I was looking at a car for my big One Eight. Now… well, who the fuck knows what kind of vehicles there'll be in twenty-one eleven? By that time, the entire human race could mutate. I could come back and end up surrounded by mutants. Or aliens. Or I could not come back at all. I might not want to come back. You know why I'm still sitting here, Damon?" she slapped at the blood and made a show of licking her fingers clean. Then she slumped down and let it cover her. She stayed submerged for a second, a second and a half, and came back up drenched with her mouth puffed up and full. With him staring a hole through her, she swallowed. "I'm still sitting here, Damon, because I'm starting to accept the idea of being a monster. To kill a monster, you have to become a bigger, meaner monster. Klaus is the monster du jour and guess what, I'm going to become such an insane beast... I'm going to outmatch him. If he kills one of mine, I'm going to kill ten of his. If he wants to bathe in blood, I'll bathe in blood too. I'll eat blood, I'll drink blood. I'll sleep in it. I'll dream about it. He likes it when we're afraid of him? I'll make him afraid of me. And not just him. Every fucking thing that goes bump in the night. I don't know what's real from what isn't, but down to the fucking tooth fairy; if tooth fairies are real I want them scared shitless. If leprechauns are real, I want them scared shitless. Even unicorns. If unicorns are real–"

"You want them scared shitless. Got it."

She met his eyes with her mismatched ones. "I'm going to kill them all. Mags'll kill them all."

He swallowed. "So I gather."

"And?"

"And nothing."

"Nothing to say? Now at the end? I'm moments away from unleashing hell and you have nothing to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Anything."

"I'm distracted."

"By?"

_You. _"The view. A lot of traffic. Seeing it's Halifax, Canada. Never knew they got this much traffic up here. I'm shocked."

She stood suddenly, angrily, and the kaleidoscope shifted again.

Had he ever wanted a woman more? So much that it became a need? It had taken him so long to get to this point, and now when she was standing right there I front of him… A century? Without ever having her?

In three moves he had her naked and pressed against the glass wrenching the shirt and the towel away from her. "Waste not…" he muttered as he licked the thickening blood out of her collarbone, "want not." Her skin was hot. Like fire on his tongue. Hotter than he'd expected, but he'd been prepared. He kissed her, up her neck until he was at her mouth. _Her lips are like… Her lips are like…_ He couldn't think, all his blood had gone down to his cock, painfully.

'_Is this how it feels?'_ her thought cut into his mind like lightning. '_I'll have to ask Elena. Or Caroline. Or any girl over sixteen._

Her mouth tasted like Vodka and blood. He bit his own tongue and pushed it into her mouth.

'_Damon. Damon. Damon. Damon. Damon. Damon._ _Damon. Damon.' _He opened his eyes, broke the kiss and pulled back, just for a second. Just to see her pull forward and seek him out. '_Damon!' _He pressed himself back to her. The back of her head thumped against the glass. '_Damon!' _her thighs came up against his waist. Her feet hooked in to the waistband of his jeans…He pulled away. Took two mental and physical steps back.

'_I'm not doing it right.' _ Her voice was pure panic. '_I'm not doing it right! I don't know what I'm doing! I don't know what I'm doing! And he knows... He can smell out virgins a mile back. God! I'm his virgin of the month. Virgin of the week! And I'm not even a good virgin. Should have watched a porno. How hard would it have been to watch one? Now I'm like a Mormon virgin._ _This is rock bottom, Bonnie. This is shame. Can't even blame it on Mags because Mags knows how to fuck a man. Disappear, Bonnie. Disappear.' _"What am I doing wrong?" Her voice was half moan, half whimper, half pleading whisper.

"Nothing." She wasn't doing anything wrong. It was all on him. He was reaching too far into her. Listening in to her thoughts, feeling every single doubt, emotion, hesitation… "I want you." His eyes took in the full image of her wet, naked body. Took in the shape of her breasts, the diamonds on her neck, the wet patch of hair where her legs met, the tight, toned muscles of her legs and her ass, the shape of her face more exposed now with her hair wet and slicked back than he'd ever seen it before.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Turn around." His voice broke horribly. "Face the other way, otherwise I'll come before I even get inside you."

"Damon..." her eyes held all the questions she didn't put voice to.

"Trust me. Put your hands on the glass. Use your elbows if you want and spread your legs a little."

She turned, giving him the two seconds he needed to catch his breath and get out of his clothes. He pressed himself against her, letting her feel the length of him against her back. "This has to go inside you, Bonnie," he whispered into her ear, licking the lobe and sending a hand around her waist to settle on her mound. Her ass pushed back against him, then her hips jerked forward erratically. She was a ball of tight, tense, panicking muscle. One of her hands came down and covered his. His cock settled in between the cheeks of her ass and he couldn't help the moan that escaped him. In a fluid well practiced movement, he readjusted the position of their hands, got his over hers, and guided her fingers to her opening.

"Damon…" Why didn't he have something to record this with? She would never say his name like that again. Never quite like that.

He pushed her own fingers up inside of her. One of his own fingers was there with hers too. Her hips pressed down on her hands, and he pushed their fingers up to meet the movement. He kissed her somewhere behind her ear, then thrust their fingers up into her again. "Bonnie..." _I love you, I love you, I love you… _

"Damon…" she nodded. Her voice was shaky, so different to the usual command, the usual haughtiness. "We're gonna have sex?"

_Yes. Because good things come to those who wait and I've been waiting for this since I've been born. _"I'm 90% sure at this point."

"I'm having sex with Damon…"

_So cute. _If he had a heart, she'd break it with her cuteness. What could a mortal man do with Bonnie Bennett? "Seems like."

"Tell me what to do."

"Don't set me on fire at any point. Because it's going to hurt, and it's a virgin thing, not a 'let's set Damon on fire' thing." _As if I'd even notice being on fire. _

"Okay."

"And if I bite you… It's because I can't help it. I'm trying really hard not to, but I might bite you. I might. I'm trying really hard to control this, but I want you in ways that might be illegal." He kissed her behind her neck, licking a spot clear of blood. She was just so fucking… edible.

He'd vowed, hadn't he, never to return to that snivelling, willowy, ass-licking, slipper-carrying, paper-fetching version of himself? Hadn't he sworn it?

_So what the fuck am I doing?_

Mags-controlled Bonnie he could deal with. There was a thick, thick, _thick _fucking line between Mags–Bonnie and normal Bonnie. Mags–Bonnie would use him for his blood and his cock and put him back on the shelf until she had further requirements. Normal Bonnie was the version that wasn't supposed to give him the time of day. Normal Bonnie was the one that hated his guts. Normal Bonnie wouldn't piss on him to put a fire out; Normal Bonnie would be the one who'd started the fire in the first place.

So what was she doing in his arms? He'd planned the seduction, but he hadn't planned on what to do if the plan had actually worked. "I love you," he whispered too low for her to here as he pressed the head of his cock to her entrance. She tensed, and he waited. Waited…

_Don't wait, you fucking ass._ _Stop mumbling. You want this, right? You like this. You're the kind of fish who likes the feel of a hook in the mouth. You can't live a day without some woman twisting you around her finger. Go on. Fall in love with this girl. Go on and do it, you fucking jackass. _

_I don't deserve her. I don't._

_Of course you don't. Look at her. Fresh, young, powerful. She had her full life ahead of her. She surrounded herself by everyone who's the complete opposite of you and what you stand for. She wants normal. She wants prom, and college, and a family. People like Jeremy, people who still attend paediatric clinics. People who have wisdom teeth, not supernumerary, retractable canines. People who don't drink human blood on a daily basis. That was all she wanted. _

"Damon?" How was he supposed to think with her saying his name like that?

_If I do this, I'm lost. _

_If I look at her, I'm lost. _

_If I touch her, I'm lost._

He pushed himself in. Just a little. Just the tip.

If she wasn't so soft in his hands, he'd have been able to stop. He'd have been able to show some kind of restraint.

He squeezed one of her breasts, as gently as he could and still call it a squeeze. He rolled the hard nipple in his fingers and squeezed. Pushed his cock in a millimetre and squeezed. Push and squeeze.

He grabbed one of her hands in his and guided her up to feel her opening and the hard length of his shaft. "This is me…Okay? This is me…" He ran her hand up and down his cock and tried not to shiver at the sensation. Tried to hold himself back from slamming into her and breaking her ten ways till Sunday. "And this is you…" He ran her fingertips over her spread folds and their connection. "I need to be inside you, Bonnie."

_Leave out the part we're you pledge your undying love. Try and leave that out, if you can. It only gets you laughed at and spat on. You're still covered in Katherine's spit, and Katherine's shit. Don't let this one shit on you, too. Keep your head on straight and keep the upper hand in this. Do NOT beg. Do NOT whine. And for the love of God, Damon, do NOT cry! Be the man. Be the pimp you're always pretending to be. Be stone cold and just fuck the bitch– _

"Damon_," _shewhimpered_._

He froze. Her fist was still clenching him and that made it worse. Made his hard on just that much harder to fit, harder to control. He slid a hand over one of her thighs and pulled it up and back around hiswaist_. _This wasn't going to be one of his all-star best, but he needed it to be hers. Her best, first-time ever. _As if that makes sense. _He lowered himself, closing the angle between their bodies a little, and rolled his hip in a little further.

"Do it, Damon. I want you. Damon, I want you–"

His teeth plunged into the skin over her jugular. He wasn't going to drink, he just needed the anchor. In one quick motion gripping her hip and her thigh, he pushed the length of him up inside her impossibly tight warmth. "Bonnie…" he moaned into her neck. She'd be the death of him. Katherine had left him crippled, Elena had left him defeated and this one… this new one would leave him dead. Her little fist was still around the bit of him that couldn't fit in, her fingernails scraping accidentally and wickedly against his balls. He put a hand over hers, entwined their fingers and squeezed. The fleeting pain brought a flicker of blood back to his brain. Gave him some focus. Somehow impossibly she found a way to angle her neck back and kiss him.

He pulled his hips back and pushed in and up again, hard. He pulled back a little further, and thrust in a little harder. If he was human, he'd sprain something, for sure, in this the awkwardest of all positions ever – _paralyzed farmgirl_? He'd come up with a name after. If he was human, it wouldn't mean so much to him. This way, he could feel the very beginnings of her climax as it rose in her. He could feel every infinitesimal vibration of her body. Feel every fucking kelvin of her heat as she tightened around him. He could _hear _the sweat on her. He could taste it. Every salt in it, every molecule, every drop of magic.

Then her ever-questing fingers reached back again, grabbing his balls, tickling his anus.

_The traffic… _He shifted his focus to the cars. He'd never been a two-minute man. He'd laughed at two-minute men. Ridiculed them. Accused them of being closet homosexuals, so he'd be damned if some wayside virgin did him in in one minute fifty three seconds. _Hyundai, Hyundai, Civic, Kia, Honda, Chevrolet… _"Bon–" _Red car, blue car, green car, blue– _

"Damon!" her voice, like the scream of a dove a thousand miles away.

A kettle was whistling and he found himself in the kitchen burning his hands on the hot metal.

"Damon!" Elijah slapped him on the cheek..

His eyes fluttered, taking in the absence of Bonnie on his cock and the man in front of him.

_A dream?_

Elijah turned the stove off, then slapped him again. "Pull it together.".

7.22, the kitchen version of the Felix Cat clock read.

_What?_

He was back in his clothes again. There was no blood filled bathtub. No Bonnie. No…

"Are you listening to me, Damon? I said go wake up Bonnie."

Not a dream… He could still taste her on his tongue and lips… Blood and magic.

"You mean Mags. Bonnie's gone…" he said, too softly even for the Original to hear. "She just said goodbye."

**AN: Not sure if this counts as a lemon or what? Not really smutty… I don't know, it was weird for me to write. But it's Damon and Bonnie having a fantasy connection more or less. Starts in the chapter before when he thinks about her, and ends with him back with Elijah again. A lot of telepathy and thoughts going on, but I kinda wanted just to show a real connection between the two of them at least on a deeper level If even on the surface they still have that bickery "I hate you so much' vibe. And basically, Mags is in full control of Bonnie from now on… **


	17. Meet Jaxxon

My Bonnie is over the ocean.

_She's about four feet away from me, give or take a centimetre. Wouldn't call it an ocean…_

My Bonnie is over the sea.

_There's a table between us, but that's about it. One mahogany table with a hand knitted tablecloth and a bowl of ruby red apples… Why do they have apples?_

My Bonnie is over the ocean.

_Not really. I can reach out and touch her. I can reach out and kiss her. And she'll kiss me back. Everything I want is in grabbing distance so what the fuck is my problem?_

'Please bring back my Bonnie to me.'

And the song would end there, his mother would clap, he'd bang his fist over the piano keys… Those were the good ol' pre-Stefan days. The good ol' days when all you had to do to be a good boy was brush your teeth and keep your mud pies outside.

Damon twiddled his thumbs – actually _twiddled _them for maybe the first time in his life – because for perhaps the first time in his life he was absolutely shit out of ideas.

"You look dazed," she, Mannie, said. He was calling her 'Mannie' now – short for Magwyr-Bonnie Amalgamation. That, and because he was finding her attitude just a little _mannish_. "Somebody dazed you, Damon?"

Bonnie had dazed him. She'd dazed him good and proper with her little cerebral seduction, hallucinatory fuck. She'd dazed the shit out of him and a good fifteen minutes later he was still putting the pieces together. _His_ Bonnie, the born martyr and designated sacrifice lamb, was once again stepping up to the batter's plate for the sake of her friends, him included, the goodly residents of Mystic Falls and by extension, the world. She'd effectively loaned her body out (long term) to a psycho killer blood whore… Maggie… and in return the psycho killer blood-whore was supposed to off Klaus… _Right_…

She, Mannie, rapped her knuckles on the table to get his attention, leaving a bloody stain on the cloth. "You're going to have to keep your shit tight, Damon."

Said the woman who was oozing blood from literally every orifice. She looked like a zombie. A hot zombie, but still… Mags, he'd always known, was bat-shit insane, but how could she just sit there and possess somebody? Why was she still bleeding? She kept sniffing red snot back up into her nostrils and blinking away bloody tears. She was bleeding from her scalp too somewhere, the ends of her hair dripping clots every now and then. Hot, but still…"My shit's always tight," he rebutted, trying to keep his face straight.

"'Cause you look sad," she pouted prettily. Almost the way Bonnie used to pout, but with more lust and killing intent behind it. "I thought you'd be happier – you're the one here who gets to benefit. The chastity belt is effectively done away with… It has been cast into the fires of Mount Doom, as Tolkien might say. The cunt is free at last for your perusing pleasure–"

"God, have mercy."

"What?" she guffawed. "We're all over eighteen, physically and or mentally speaking. Doesn't the issue at hand boil down to 'cocks' and 'cunts'? We're all old souls here. Besides blood, sex and magic, what else do we live for? What do our lives consist of, besides killing and fucking?"

"Well… I've started this Rosetta Stone thing recently. Brushing up on my Russian…" Wasn't killing Klaus the issue at hand?

_And she's going to kill me too. So much for your master plan, Bon. This girl is going to go wild and no one's going to be able to stop her. _

Mannie was going to kill him at some point in time. He could tell by the way she glared at him, newly red eyes venomous and glowing, glowing in a way that was slightly… evil. Then she smiled, toothily. Like a young, ethnic version of the witch in the Hansel and Gretel Storybook, right before she chocked Hansel into the oven – page 28. She sucked her teeth and frowned. "Damon," she drawled, "If you've got something to say..."

"How 'bout we ignore each other in blissful silence, cause I don't feel chatty at the moment."

"How 'bout no. See, I'm actually telepathic. Don't know how you forgot that one. I can here you wishing death on me. The _true death_, as if such a thing exists, and I can hear the confusion blossoming in your young, tender mind. So how 'bout we clear the air? The only tension I like is the sexual kind…"

"Well, right there." He took a swig of the beer in his hands. "That's my problem. You've taken my super cute, innocent dove, sunset girl and turned her into a slut."

"How is this slutty?" She gestured around the empty kitchen area. "Elijah's practically _licking_ the blood out of that girl, Greta… _That's _slutty_. _Our dearest Katherine, brotherfucker to the bone… _That's_ a slut.

"Compared to Bonnie, the quintessential virgin, everyone's a slut."

"And isn't that why you gave her my talisman?" she grinned. "Wasn't it to help… limber her up? Get the vaginal juices flowing?"

"I wanted you to have a miniscule influence." He grabbed a beer and knocked it around between his hands. Enjoying the slap of cold glass on his palms. Palms he'd had on Bonnie. "I wanted you to help me turn the tide in my favour. Not a full onslaught fucking possession, Mags!"

"Bonnie wouldn't piss on you to put out a fire."

That's what he used to think up until one very wet daydream fifteen minutes ago. It hadn't been real, and yet it had been the most real and the most significant event of his life for decades. He'd had a one on one encounter with the true Bonnie. The rainbow-and-butterflies Bonnie who used to exist way back in the good ol' days before he'd brought murder and mayhem to her doorstep. She'd come into his mind, or he'd gone into hers, and while there's been a paucity in confessions of undying endless love, there'd been some confessions and confirmations of other things. Respect. Admiration. Desire...

"She doesn't deserve you taking over her life."

"It's the only way to do this! I don't see why you're upset! You wanted Bonnie, I'm giving her to you, spread and willing. You want Klaus dead; we have his unconscious body in the next room–"

"We still have to deal with Greta–"

"Soon as Elijah's done defiling her body, I'm gonna teleport her to the moon."

"Hmm?"

"You heard me."

"Uh… No. Don't think I did."

"M-O-O-N, moon."

"You can do that?"

"Maybe she doesn't make it to the moon, but I'll settle for anything beyond the stratosphere. A hybrid lost in space for millennia has a certain appeal, don't you think? Do hybrids need oxygen?"

"No mercy for a fellow witch?"

"_Mercy_? Pass me a dictionary."

_Bonnie needs mercy. She deserves it. _

"I'm not doing anything to Bonnie. Bonnie's safe. She's not screaming for release in some virtual cage inside her cranium Damon. She'd crossed over to the other side and–"

"Other side?" _As in the dead side?_

"The _other_ other side," she smirked, bobbing her head like a dashboard dog. "You think it's only you vampires who want to live forever? In this world, there are a thousand and one _other _sides. First and foremost, is the dead side. Then we witches have our 'magic' side. The humans have this side. Witches aren't human, Damon. When we die, we get pushed out from the human side, back to our side. And when we get frustrated on that side, we can come back. Where'd you think I'd been slumming it all this time?"

"So Bonnie's off in some magic realm? Some make-believe la-la land, and you expect me to be fine with that? Seriously? You know me, Mags? You honestly thought I'd be fine with this, all honky dory?"

"I expect you to understand the situation and accept it for what it is!" her red eyes flashed and a fresh red tear broke away, very distractingly, "I don't know who or what you think you're dealing with, but Klaus is not to be trifled with. At this very moment, when we're sitting pretty smelling this lovely apple fragrance, our dear boy Klaus, has found himself a witch to possess and he is on his way here. Travelling with him is another demon, Jaxxon. Recently summoned. While you and Bon Bon are having fantasy sex, Klaus has been summoning demons. He's miles away and I can feel him in my fucking pores. I'm not quite scared shitless, but that's just because Bonnie's young and her bowels are strong."

"Eww."

"Eww, indeed. I'm your only hope, and I don't say that to be arrogant. Fighting Klaus is going to take everything in me."

"And everything in me too?" he suspected out loud.

"That's the gist. I'll need your blood and Elijah's."

"Why? Bonnie had her epic bleed out all over the place. Why put more blood in? I don't think the effect–"

"That's collateral damage. There's an area in the human brain, responsible for magic. Normally that area has no blood supply, so it's dead in most people. Witches have a blood supply to that area, and the more we use that magic spot, the more blood we need. Same way you need more blood to your muscles when you run. The high blood pressure required ruptures a couple capillaries along the way, no biggie."

"She lost consciousness."

"No biggie. The measure of a witch's strength is in how much of herself she's willing to sacrifice. A witch in our village lost her eyesight when she was thirteen. Did a spell to help end a drought that would have crippled us. Never regretted it."

Damon swallowed another mouthful of beer and wished it was something way stronger. How had it come to this? Last week, Klaus had been a blip on the wall, a silly little nuisance. They'd gotten Stefan back, no harm done. He'd left them all in relative peace. He hadn't gone after Elena. He hadn't gone after Bonnie either… And yet, the world was coming to an end.

Why?

Deep down, he knew there were reasons why Klaus had to be killed – dude was a villain – but couldn't they have pushed it to the back burner a little? He'd been on the Kill Klaus brigade since day one, but that was back then when the sun rose and set with the bat of Elena's eyes and the flutter of her hair in the evening wind. Back then when he'd been willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone, if it meant he'd have Elena's appreciation for a nanosecond, if it meant a chance for her to develop a smidgen of affection.

He pushed the chair back, stood and picked out one of the hardiest knives in the rack. He had a disembowelling to set up. "Mags…" he started before he had the rest of the sentence prepared. "Bonnie belongs to me–"

"Wrong era, boy. _Emily _belonged to you–"

"You know what I mean. This body you're in right now," he leaned in close to her until they were inches apart, just for emphasis, "Mine. Got it?"

She licked her lips, her ruby red, bloody lips, with her cute baby tongue. "I can do submissive, Damon."

He brought the tip of the knife to her throat. "I want you to do monogamous. Obedient. _Decent_," he jabbed the point of the knife in a little deeper until he drew a drop of blood. "Because as much as I love Bonnie, I'd rather kill her and jack off to her shrine, than witness this… infestation."

"You need me."

"Not really. Comes down to killing Klaus or keeping Bonnie, then I say fuck. Let Klaus do whatever the fuck he wants–"

"You imagine Klaus letting the two of you live to ripe old age back in the boarding house? Sorry about burning it down by the way… but that was Bonnie. If you didn't notice, Klaus has a big ol' soft spot for witches. Used to collect them back in the day. Him and Elijah…"

"I know. That's why this knife isn't in your windpipe, Magwyr. I'm going to go cut the guts out of Klaus, then you do your mumbo jumbo and summon the items–"

"No need, Klaus is bringing them with him."

"All the better," he said even though he was sure his face was going crazy. "You do your mumbo jumbo, summon whatever demon or demon-slayer you need, kill Klaus, then you get to fuck out of my girl. You don't need to go back to the grave, but you need to get to fuck outta, Bonnie. Feel me?"

"Yes Damon, you and the stainless steel blade at my jugular," she said with a smile.

"Good," he pulled away. "Now when you say guts, what do you mean exactly? Colon, small intestines?"

_These guys…_ Klaus mused as he passed through the lobby humming the catchy tune blasting from the battery powered handheld radio.

_But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?  
>Did you finally get the chance<br>To dance along the light of day  
>And head back toward the Milky Way?<em>

_But tell me, did you sail across the sun?  
>Did you make it to the Milky Way<br>To see the lights all faded  
>And that heaven is overrated?<em>

_Train. Those beautiful guys… _He'd never gotten down to watching one of their music videos, so he really didn't have any idea what they'd look like, but he imagined they'd be beautiful people. Blond hair blowing in the wind, blue eyes twinkling in the sunlight, lips like peaches, cheeks like cherubs… with unicorns eating out of their hands.

How could some random, mortal, rotting piece of flesh humans guess at what it would feel like to find heaven overrated? Whoever their songwriter was, he had to be an angel, or a monk, or a hybrid. Only angels (disgruntled, soon-to-be-fallen ones), monks (blind ones ) and hybrids had the audacity to be that nigh blasphemic.

Not that he disagreed. There'd been some disappointments to be honest, and he _had_ danced along the light of day, parasailed along the Milky May and spelunked into the heart of the sun… metaphorically speaking, even though he half felt that spelunking into the heart of the sun might be something to put on his _to do_ list. After all, was there a point in being immune to fire if he didn't play with it a bit? As soon as they started having public access rockets, he'd do that. He'd bum a ride out into space and free fall into the belly of that golden beast–

Maddox froze with one foot inside the elevator, an expression on his face that read 'Bitch, you gonna die_…_ Nice knowing ya.' "I'll catch up to you," he mumbled, as he stepped back.

"What is it?" Klaus asked, because he had to, as if he had to. He'd been expecting Maddox to step down… If he were Maddox, he'd have done the same. It was only logical. When a man chooses to walk into an open death trap, only retards follow. And Maddy wasn't no retard.

Of course he knew the Killer Witch was waiting for him as soon as he reached the top floor. He wasn't born yesterday. Neither the day before yesterday. His spidey senses had never been sharper. He patted the bag pack on his back. "Come on, let's just meet up with Greta and get rid of these accursed items. Maybe we can borrow your cauldron and melt them down…"

"It's just a regular pot."

"It's a black pot."

"Do pots come in any other colour?"

"They've the enamel ones."

Maddox took another step back, a flicker of fear in his eyes, "I forgot my phone in the car."

"Want me to help you look? Four eyes are better than two, even though this one's not pushing 20/20…"

"It's okay," Maddox licked his lips, nervously. "I'm right behind you."

"That's what she said."

"Eh… Yeah… Want me to hold on to that bag for you?"

"I got it."

"Right."

_And the cheese stands alone. _Klaus hit 32 on the elevator as the doors began to slide shut between him and the man that used to be almost his friend. "See you around, fellow. Pip pip, and cheerio."

The elevator moved slowly, or swiftly, (depends) up to the last floor. _One, two, three, four… _the light flashed as he moved up and up, closer and closer, deeper and deeper into the trap they'd set.

"A master piece of a trap, really," a man said from the corner of the elevator in a British accent that was even more British than his own. A man he hadn't seen before – a previously invisible man. About five feet and a half, a little grey in the beard. _A ponytail… _Wearing a tweed suit… and suspenders. What Sherlock Holmes would look like if he were real and free-lanced as stuntman. A wiry, springy sense of coiled strength seemed to radiate from under the tweedy scarf. His face was young, with sculptured cheek bones and babyish, pink cheeks. Green eyes like crystallised ocean...

"Jaxxon, I presume."

"Niklaus."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise." They shook hands.

"I've heard a lot about you," the demon said, as he stood, one arm at his side and the other in his pocket fingering a gold watch-piece no doubt, or a set of brass knuckles, or a monocle."Thought you were a guy, though."

"Most days I am."

"Oh."

"And that thing about you being a cocksucker…"

_Hmm? What now? _"What thing?"

"There was a thing about three hundred and sixty-two years ago."

"Oh."

"_Oh_?"

"It's completely unfounded. She was an hermaphrodite."

"_He _was an hermaphrodite." The demon shifted, then took out a notepad from his shirt jack, and began flipping through pages. "Alrighty then…" he said as he settled on a scribbled over page. "How would you describe yourself, Niklaus? Homosexual, heterosexual, transsexual, post-up, pre- op–"

"I'm confused…"

"Obviously."

"No." Klaus forced a grin and a deep breath. In and out. In and out. Good boys don't scream and shout. "I'm confused as to your purpose. I summoned you a while ago… What took you? Lost track of time out on the moors?"

Jaxxon fixed his coat. "Didn't mean to offend the young master, apologies."

Personality number two. Interesting. "_Young_ master?"

"You're very young sir, but I mean no disrespect by it. You've earned my sworn allegiance for the next thousand years, you may reprimand any insolence as you see fit."

_That's what she said. _

_Stop it._

Jaxxon, the killer demon. The wickedest thing to walk the earth… Sweet virgin Bonnie and her after-school, crime-fighting brady bunch wouldn't know what hit them. "Too early in the day for reprimands, I say, but maybe you can help me out with something. You're aware that I'm walking into a trap?"

"Yes."

"What kind of trap?"

"You don't know?"

"The clairvoyance is acting up a bit. All I have is a twitch in the guts and a healthy dose of foreboding."

"I thought you were all powerful," Jaxxon frowned, then jutted something down in his notes.

"I wouldn't say _all _powerful. Exponentially powerful, maybe–"

"Magwyr. Short of a miracle, she's going to kill you."

There had to be more to it than Magwyr. He'd dealt with her reincarnations before. He even had his own pet reincarnation down in the basement, little sixteen year old Anastasia…

"Statutory–"

"Shut up. Doesn't count if she's a witch."

"You'll tell the coppers that?"

"Shut up."

"And the girlfriend wouldn't take too kindly to that either, I'd imagine."

"What girlfriend?"

"The one who had the period a while back, and you–"

"Shut up!" Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen… Klaus sucked his teeth. Something he hadn't done since…"Fucking voyeur."

Unoffended, Jaxxon beamed. "Not much else to do on the Demon Side beside voyeurism and self-gratification. You're a right ol' kinky bastard, ain't ya? We like watching you. You and Damon Salvatore are the only things good on TV these days."

"Damon Salvatore? You're comparing me to that… miscreant?"

"You're very similar."

"How so?"

"You've both fucked Katherine, for starters," the demon counted 'one' on his fingers.

"Who hasn't? She gets around and she's a good lay."

"That was just for starters. Second… You both have a penchant for witch-fucking." He added a finger to the tally.

_Who doesn't? _"And?"

"You're both in this conundrum by virtue of being pussy whipped." Three fingers.

"Excuse me?"

"Sir, you are aware that at any point you can get off this elevator and go back down? You can disappear to some one of your hundred other hideouts and lay low until this blows over in a decade or two. Hawaii, perhaps… Soak in some sun?"

"I don't run away from my enemies."

"You used to. You're a fucking Olympian when it comes to running away from your enemies," he said with a patronizing look, "Except this time you're all 'leave no twat behind.'

Klaus tried to turn away from the man, but the elevator was too small. "You're incredibly rude, for a man in tweed."

"Perhaps, young master, save consider that I be a _demon_ in tweed."

"Either way, you're rude."

"And you're very… Charming and mannerly."

"And that shocks you? You're opposed to charm?"

"It's only I expected different," the demon said sighing deeply, "You're supposed to be completely… deranged. Insane with bloodlust and… just general lust. Remember when you compelled that guy into becoming a literal motherfucker… yeah, I was expecting more of that and less of this… Jude Law routine. God bless his beautiful heart, Jude Law. Hope he dies and comes to hell before he loses anymore of his hair. Handsome bugger."

"When you say hell…"

"Do I mean the big Hot Toasty down below? No. We Horned Ones have our own Side. DemonSide. With air conditioning. It's rather frigid, in fact. They don't let us handle the remote you see, and the–"

"Horned Ones? Show me your horns."

"I've only got one…" he started undoing his belt.

"Never mind." Klaus closed his eyes.

"You're rather prudish, as well. For a bloke who compelled a man into becoming a literal motherfucker… Angus Jones… He never recovered after that, you know. Became a serial killer, poor chap."

_Angus?_ "Don't really remember that."

"I've got it on DVD. I'll send you a download link sometime."

"DVD of what? The compelling, the serial killing or the motherfucking?"

"The full nineteen yards. And then some."

"Well, that nice. Maybe if I survive this thing with Magwyr, I'll have a look."

"Indeed."

_Demons don't hear sarcasm?_ Nineteen, twenty… _Is the elevator this slow usually? Or is he slowing it down?_

"Of course I'm slowing it down. I'm slowing everything down. Space… time… I thought we should have a moment to get to know one another…"

"Well, good on you, but if you don't mind… I've got a showdown to get to." _Can he hear my thoughts? You cockless fucker, can you here my thoughts? _

"So… yeah…" he looked down at his shoes. "It's a demon thing. It helps with the whole 'lure you into temptation' bit. But anyhow… how 'bout we jump ship? I'm your genie in a bottle, love. Say the word and we're on a Bahamian beach intoxicating ourselves with every liquor known to man. Then we can find a well lit room and fuck each other senseless–"

"…" Klaus press the #32 button again in an attempt – a futile attempt – to get the elevator to move faster. He could have _ran _up the stairs faster. Even in Lucinda's asthma riddled, so not athletic body. "You're a bit sex obsessed, ain't you mate?"

"It's a demon thing, sweetheart."

A surreal feeling of déjà vu washed over him. _Do I sound like this? At any point in time have I ever sounded like this? "_For the record," he put his hands to his breasts, "this is a rental."

"I know. Insurance will cover the damages."

"Damages… Yeah, ummm…As much as I love a good demonic banging, how about we not go there, huh? How about we keep this master servant thing strictly business and–"

"That's not the deal Greta got," the demon pouted. "And you have to be fair, sir. 'Equal opportunity' and all that jazz… Now's actually the most convenient time for both of us, while you still have a slit, I mean. Not that I'm not willing to go anal when you get that body back. The male version does possess a sort of lithe grace and feline agility–"

Klaus vomited a little in his throat, but he supressed it. Swallowed it. "Not gonna happen."

"Well, we can do the whole condom thing if you want. Don't quite see the need… In fact, I've been meaning to ask about that as well. What's with the condoms, love?"

"Jax? Drop it, yeah?"

"Come on! I've been known to give a mean blow back in the day."

"No."

"Handy?"

"No."

"I get it. You want to be the one to give… The old withhold the orgasm trick–"

"No."

"We can try role-play. I can do catholic schoolgirl– No, we'll be two catholic school girls who forgot to wear panties one day–"

Klaus' stomach heaved again and there was no suppressing or swallowing to be had. The rest of the emo meat spread out chunkily across the elevator floor. "Happy?" he snarled wiping his face with the back of his hand. "Frank evidence of how utterly disgusting you are. Happy?"

"Kind of. Demon thing."

Twenty. Still. "Can we get this fucking thing moving?"

"In a hurry to die?"

"Can't die."

"Really?" Jaxxon thumped the bagpack on his back. "You're delivering everything she needs to resurrect Geraldine. And without a doubt, Geraldine will kill you."

"How do you know? Has she much experience killing hybrids? She won't know what to do with me."

"Really? Cause your puppy love Maddox just ditched out on you. Tucked his tail between his legs and scampered. Handsome bugger, that Maddox… A well endowed bloke if ever…"

"Maddox is a paid associate. He's paid per spell. Free to come and go as he chooses."

"And the coochie mama… You pay her in what exactly? Fluid ounces of cum?"

"Clever… but none of your business, really."

"I'm just trying to understand, sir, what manner of man I've indentured myself to. You and Damon… I care so much because I don't understand. Damon, I get a little. Bonnie at least, is abominably cute. Asymmetric, but cute. Greta's kinda… not cute. It's kinda twisted, really. You more or less kidnapped her, brainwashed her into being your lapdog concubine… concubine lapdog… How do you feel about bestiality, Niklaus?" he drawled out the question with a most official air about him…

"Can we get this elevator moving? Destiny awaiting and all that?"

"Destiny? Fuck destiny in the face. This is bonding time. Twenty question time. Number one–"

"Fine. Twenty questions and the elevator goes again?"

"Agreed. One – Yes or no. Bestiality? Zoophilia?"

"No."

"What if you turn into a wolf and it's mating season?"

"Doesn't work like that."

"Imagine – it's the height of mating season and you find yourself surrounded by a pack of female wolves that _need_ you to fuck them in order to keep the species alive?"

"The species will survive just fine without my input."

"What about you in wolf form with a human, say Greta…"

"The position wouldn't work for anyone."

"So you've thought about it… how'd I miss that? It was a dream, was it? I skipped a couple of your dreams. Demon thing – we don't like dreams."

"Noted. That it?"

"No. How do you feel about Catholic–"

"No."

"Bondage–"

"No."

"Frotteurism?"

"Only around full moon."

"Paedo–"

"Fifteen and up."

"Masochism?"

"With a witch, sure."

"Sadism?"

"With a witch, sure. Not going to happen with you, Jax. Not in this body, not in my body, not in this century, not in any century. I don't do frank homosexual–"

"Excepting that guy you sucked off."

"She was an hermaphrodite. Can we get the elevator moving?"

_21 _flashed, then _22, 23. _"Fine. Off to rescue the coochie mama it is. You do know she's dead, though?"

Five minutes and he was already regretting not siding with Greta on not summoning Jaxxon. _Insufferable_ didn't cover it. "By the way, Jaxxon, demon, any word of advice? Any helpful and relevant suggestions as to how best I should deal with Magwyr?"

"Fuck her?"

"That's all you got?"

"Might want to do it bondage style, just to be safe."

"And Geraldine, the demon slayer? I fuck her too? That's all you got for me? After everything I sacrificed?

"What the fuck did you sacrifice? People you hate? Sacrifices work best when you're actually sacrificing something. Slitting open the village vagabond doesn't count for much."

"It still worked."

"Meh," Jaxxon shrugged. "I was bored, felt like coming anyway. And seeing as you're about to die shortly… I'm more or less free to roam the human side for at least the next nine hundred and ninety nine years."

"If you're not going to help me, then fuck off. Go get buggered or banished or whatever."

"Who pissed in your cuppa tea, lady guv'nor?"

_What?_

Thirty.

Thirty-one.

Thirty two.

_Nice. _Traitors to kill, and he was sick to his stomach all over again. "Was your sole purpose to get me distracted? Make me lose my cool?" the elevator bell dinged, the doors opened and once again he was alone in the four foot space. "If you're not going to help, why bother?" he muttered under his breath, working up the courage to go and either get killed or kill them all.

Over the back mirror panel, written in lipstick, (creepily) :

_It's a demon thing._

AN: Credit where it's due – The idea for the DemonSide I kinda took from Death Note (if you still haven't read it, check it out cause it's crazy cool). Sorry for the really long absence, but I'm kinda hard up cause I can't ditch call days and I have 18hr days with a 2hr drive (if you don't know what an 'on call' day is, enjoy your sweet innocent life – I envy you immensely and want to live in your skin – joke.) This is my one weekend for a while. Should finish this up in the two weeks off that I get for Christmas. So check back around then. Sorry.

The language got a little obscene this chap, but I just wanted to add a little justification for the rated M tag I attached. I'm still considering if to fluff out the Bamon or keep it straight. Bamon fluff has a sort of innocent appeal, but I think I'm too far in to add more fluff now. IDK, we'll see. Also, I wanted to get a flavouring for the whole demon-demon slayer thing, cause I haven't put as much development into those guys.

I actually stopped watching TVD, just so that I don't get incepted with one of the canon ideas. I want to keep this strictly split off from the end of S2, so any references made to Micheal or Becks or Gloria will just be in passing mostly. When I saw that episode where they were all "the necklace belonged to the original witch. It's her talisman" I was all, GTFO! At least I didn't call Mags the original witch. (Which I don't really get – were there no witches before the original witch or do they call her that just because of her association with the originals as in 'the originals' witch) Next thing, I kinda stopped reading other fics too, just not to get incepted. There are some really good Steffonie and Klonnie hits out there… don't know why I like all the bonnie based fan fics… maybe because she gets so little screentime and has the most room for creative expansion? My fav characters on this are Bonnie, Alaric and Tyler… The less screentime you get, the more I love you. Kinda hating Damon a little bit this season.

Longest AN note, ever? Sorry, just wanted to give you guys a heads up. Next thing – please anybody who reads this – review it please. I kinda want to reach a hundred reviews. Mad thanks and crazy love to everyone who did and to my peeps who put this in their favourite story list!


	18. A little nostalgia and some woowoo

**AN: Wo… back at it. Sorry for the supermassive long wait, but I really didn't have one single free moment to get this up. It's still not really finished properly. I just onced it over and decided to put it up cause it's been a month and a week since my last update. Insert sad face here. I had to back read **_**twice**_**. This fan fic is too long! I'll try for shorter, more manageable concise chapters. I'll **_**try.**_

**Anyhow, thanks again to everyone still reading this. I've had some time to mull this around and I have something kinda weird that I want to try… If it gets too weird and unfollowable let me know, except, I kinda have the whole thing rooted now so it'll be kinda hard to deviate. **

**Apparently 'kinda' is my favourite word.**

**This chapter's mostly just some Damon introspection, and a recap. Doesn't really take up much actual time and runs timewise in sync with the latter half of the last chapter 'Meet Jaxxon'. I really want to get into Damon's damage a little bit. I mean, it's a Bamon, but I've a vested interest in creating a fleshed out Damon. **

**Thanks for reading. Even if I might not change the plot, still drop a comment to approve or disapprove, so I'd have an idea for the future if I want to try another fanfic. All criticism is good criticism, unless you cuss me out or something… So if you stop following it, lemme know why, please!**

**Big thanks for reading!**

The abattoir butchers had always been fun to watch. Many a Sunday afternoon he'd spent peering into the slaughter house when he was young. A century and a half ago, give or take. And how he used to hate them, those vile abattoir men. How he'd wished them dead, and damned… and at the same time, how he'd revered them. He'd stand there on his tiptoes peeping, afraid, disgusted and enraptured, with the open mouthed fascination only a bloody red cleaver could generate.

If only he'd become a butcher instead of a soldier, he might have had some skill at carcass dressing hybrids. If only he'd helped out with the kitchen staff a little more and learnt the tricks of the gutting trade. If only Klaus had had a proper cleaver in his silverware collection. _If only..._

_Story of my life._

If only Katherine hadn't been a grade A bitch; if only Elena didn't look just like her; if only Stefan had been born cross-eyed or chromosome deficient; _if only I hadn't drank Katherine's blood and got shot through the chest by the old man_; if only…

If only he'd not been so snarly that time he'd been trying to get the crystal to open the tomb. If only he'd not gotten her grandmother killed. If only he'd not founded the "Let's Sacrifice Bonnie for Elena" campaign…

Her own fault, most of it…

Well, it _was_. Always with that 'get thee hence' attitude. Always with that chin in the air, parading around on her stilted, constipated, high horse.

He liked to think they'd had a 'playful banter' thing going, but there'd been days when he'd see clear as daylight that she was dead serious about setting him on fire… That, and she'd actually set him on fire the once…

Damon sighed and wiped the non-existent sweat off his brow; gutting a man was hard work. His muscles were tight with the effort, and a faint bitter taste in the back of his throat was telling him he'd pushed himself too far outside his limits.

He should have taken a sip of all the tasty, bubbly, nigh effervescent, 100% proof hybrid blood that Elijah and Magwyr were guzzling, but he'd wanted to keep the taste of Bonnie on his lips… The hunger was doing him in. He was out of it. Just touching Klaus' body and battling through the musky, murderous aura it seemed to exude was draining him…

He felt like a human kid again. Like a pathetic whelpling running uphill with a wicked burn in his thighs…

_I'm a kid compared to these guys,_he realised.

Klaus, Mags, Elijah, Geraldine, Jaxxon… They'd been prowling in the shadows centuries before old man Giuseppe had ever even _dreamed_ of getting lucky with his mother. They'd come up in the times of Vikings and wars and Atilla and…

Sure he had some war experience under his belt, but while he'd been trained to handle a rifle, Klaus had grown up handling broadswords and claymores, _living_ a sword-and-shield lifestyle. Just because the dude bought his clothes at the local GAP, didn't mean he wasn't still a heathen barbarian deep down.

_And who am I to call anyone a barbarian? _

He glowered over the circle of blood and intestine he'd created.

_Who am I to call anyone heathen? _

After realising that none of the kitchen knives were going to open up the hybrid in a permanent way, (the guy could heal faster than a sumbitch), he'd elected to just rip the entire gastrointestinal tract out through the mouth.

Yeah…

Messy.

Stuff of nightmares.

Funny how you get creative when the situation calls for it. If it hadn't been for Greta and her _de_ _novo_ method of torture, the idea might not have come to him at all. Pre-torture Damon used to keep it clean. A heart-rip used to be the limit of how gory he'd go, but now?

His brain was doing backflips and summersaults… A touch of mania, perhaps?

Maybe… Reaching down somebody's throat and ripping their ass out through their mouth seemed a kinda manic thing to do.

_Who_ _knows_?

He was either evolving or devolving. The verdict was still in the air.

On one hand, he'd used more of his vampiric power in one week than he'd used in the last century. He'd regrown a hand, regrown a liver, survived the wickedest Mad Hatter Tea-party of all time… If he were a Pokémon, he'd definitely be evolving… with all the experience points he'd been accumulating.

But he wasn't some cute cuddly Pokémon that could only say one word. He was one of the darker creatures. Cute and cuddly and sexy, but dark. And what if dark creatures of the night didn't get to evolve? What if they _de_volved? Lost their minds… Lost their humanity? Until some random day, he'd wake up with a hankering to eat raw brain and make a baby bonfire…

What if that had happened to Klaus during the slow passage of a millennium?

Mere days ago he'd been sitting in his own house browsing through an old _Seventeen_ magazine that Elena had left behind. Come a thousand years, would a batch of kids break into _his_ place and rip _his_ ass out through his mouth?

_Do unto others…_

_One good turn…_

_What goes around…_

He wiped his bloody hands in his jersey and surveyed the gory circle he'd made in the living room. Tongue to anus… That's how he'd made the circle. Tongue, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, colon, rectum, anus…

Damon Salvatore had handled another man's anus and there was no soap, alcohol or UV light that could purify him, he mused, staring at his evil handiwork. Sure, there been no actual faecal matter, only blood and bone and fur… a lot of hair… fingernails… a reindeer horn (?)… three hooves…and a red scarf, but just thinking '_guts'_ had him cringing.

He'd done it in the name of Bonnie, so no one could blame him …

He started to put down the candles.

_What the fuck am I doing…_

All his life he'd been the man with the plan, but lately, he was beginning to feel like a man doing 250 mph with no brakes.

The only sure idea was that one way or the other, before the day was out, they were going to kill Klaus. Or literally die trying. When had it become so complicated though? It had been simple enough before…

Then Bonnie'd popped up naked in a restaurant.

Then he'd gotten tortured by a witch he'd killed three or four months ago.

Then he'd had sex with Bonnie – the girl that used to hate him who he'd recently started a _delayed_ love-at-first-sight thing with – except that Bonnie was now possessed by another dead witch he'd killed a couple years back… who Elijah and a couple other vampires had killed as well. And except that they hadn't really had sex because it was all in his imagination…

Then he'd ripped an unconscious man's ass out through his mouth.

And Bonnie'd burned down his house…

And he still had to kill Jeremy at some point or the other… Most like, he'd outsource the job and pay someone to make it look like an accident… Drowned in a toilet bowl or something…

He missed Mystic Falls…

Weirdly.

Caroline and her obscene bubbliness.

Stefan and his frustrating rationale and mediocre, witty-_ish_ banter.

He missed his brother from another mother… and father. The A-Man. The Minimum Wage Man. Al. _Al…_; he'd try it out next time he got a chance to call. _What's up Al-man?_

He kinda sorta missed Elena. Or, he kinda sorta missed Katherine… Katherine would be kicking ass and taking names. No. Not even taking names – she wouldn't care. She'd just kick anonymous ass.

Katherine kicks, and stomps, and spits, and shits on you without even knowing your name.

_If I was more like Katherine… I'd be exactly the way I was last year._

_Like an asshole. _

_And that's enough introspection for today. _

It never paid, self-meditation. Too much thinking had been his undoing time and time again. _All plans hereafter need to be kept simple:_

First up, kill Klaus.

Second up, deal with Mags.

Third up, actually have sex with Bonnie. In real life. Preferably in a public place – like a mall or at the Grill… A true proper claiming would need witnesses.

Fourth, the killing of Jeremy Gilbert.

And fifth, set up his own, personal Blood Bath.

That was another thing about the hybrid that he didn't get… Why would someone with so many enemies be so absolutely careless? He'd left buckets and buckets of his own blood in the freezer labelled – '_for the children'. _What fucking children, Damon had no idea. The guy must have spent days on end with a needle in his arm, bleeding out for the leeches.

As a vampire he could relate to the goodness of having a pint of quality blood in the fridge,(his favourite flavour was diabetic hypertensive, his worse - vegan), but a freezer full of hybrid? Psycho Greta and psycho Maddox had been kicking it five star style. And she was pissed about being turned? Get real… Gallons of hybrid blood chilling in the fridge? She could not have had it any better. No way, Jose. When he'd been turned he'd had to go vagrant hunting, feeding off the riff raff of impoverished Southern America.

Good blood is wasted on the young.

_Maybe Klaus isn't such a bad dude, _he thought for the seventh time in the day. It was hard to be in a man's house, bathe in his bathroom, eat his apples, drink his beer, drink his blood, watch his tv, get tortured by his live-in bodyguard/girlfriend, go through his internet history and not come away with a better understanding of how the clock ticked.

Klaus had some issues, but who didn't? What if all he really needed was a hug?

Alaric had been a royal pain in the ass, but a couple of beers had done wonders.

There used to be a time when he'd had daytime dreams about garrotting Stefan with catgut, but they'd worked that out, more or less.

What if all Klaus needed was a pat on the back, a mug of mead or tea or whatever, and an adopted kid from Malaysia or somewhere?

'_Change Bonnie when she's… eighteen?' _the thought popped into his head randomly._ Is she still growing? Or is that puberty thing done? Can she ever be better than she is now? She's kinda short, but I'm good with short…_

He groaned as he tottered to his feet. When he got home, he'd have to make a stop at a church and confess this latest sin. He hadn't expected it to hit him so hard, but for mercy's sake… He'd had to take a hammer to the hybrid's face to break away some of the jaw… The feel of it… He'd remember it for all time - the _feel_ of bashing in somebody's face with a hammer…

That time when he'd tried to rip out the heart, his hand had gone in easily enough. Sure it had gotten ripped off at the elbow, but he'd gotten it in. This time around the hybrid's skin was thick as dragon-scale. Some kinda witchy woo-woo protection, no doubt, to cover him while he was zoned out.

_In a thousand years… will I become like him? _They weren't so very different, him and Klaus. They were both outsiders. They'd both been lesser sons… They'd both suffered through siblings they'd prefer to have dead…

"Stop that," Mannie entered the room with a frown on her pretty face. She'd been mind-sweeping again, no doubt, listening in to his secret, cerebral ramblings. "What did I say Damon? Keep your shit together! The amount of power at play in this building right now is catastrophic and the fact that we're all gathered here to take out the number one? You can _feel _the Reaper breathing on you. Stay focused and keep your head and your feet planted, otherwise," she snapped her fingers, "You might get lost in the whirlpool."

_Lost in the whirlpool?_

She slapped him for good measure across the cheek. There might have been a little vervain on her hand because it stung. "Focus."

He pushed her off. "I'm focused!"

"No, you're mesmerised! You're getting caught up in his thrall. You need to FEED!"

"I'm good!" _Or I want to be good._ His teeth were just itching to burst out of his gums and sink into her warm, smooth neck… Mags wouldn't mind… He might even be able to work in a quickie. "I'm not feeding on anybody. And I'm not drinking his blood. I'm _not _enthralled."

"Well, good on you, because this place is so laid down in spells and protective magic, I'm starting to reconsider using this place as the summoning site."

"Chicken?"

"It was subtle at first, but don't you feel it? There's some kind of magic around here that's making it hard to _think,_" she said soberly. "Either that, or it's his blood that enthralling me…"

"Magwyr,I swear, if you jump sides the instant Klaus comes through the door, I'll kill you myself."

"I won't. Whatever magic's at play here, I'm stronger, though. I can resist it."

She leant up on her tip toes and hugged him suddenly. Pressed herself against him in the best way possible and made him forget about the slap… "Don't worry," she spoke into his throat, "I got this. Trust me. I'm not your precious Bonnie, but I love you too. More than she does. I'll never set you on fire. I'll never hurt you. I'll protect you."

"Huh." Death had made her soft. The Mags he used to know never loved…

The doorbell was ringing, he noticed. The heavy, cloying fog of death was thicker… And Bonnie squeezed him tighter. For all essential purposes, this was Bonnie, wasn't it? He took a deep breath inhaling the scent that was so familiar.

_No. _

_This is Mannie, remember? _

He set her down as the doorbell rang a second time, followed by a quick rap of knuckles. "Klaus?"

Mannie stepped over the manhandled body of the hybrid, kicking the head accidentally, or not so accidentally, as she passed. "And he's in a bad mood."

"Wonder why," Damon muttered, his insides coiling over on themselves. None of his encounters with the hybrid had gone swimmingly, and he had no reason in the world to expect better this time around. Whose asinine idea had it been to set up shop in Klaus' humble abode? Obviously he'd have the home field advantage. What if the place was bobby trapped? Why was no one thinking about booby traps? There was so much to go wrong… And it wasn't as if he was bringing a whole heap of good luck to the table. "We're all going to die, aren't we?"

Bonnie, Mannie, Bonnie? No, Mannie… One of them or both of them gave him a wink as the doorknob turned. "That's not even the worst case scenario."


	19. Lucky number 6

**AN: To keep this from getting confusing, remember that it's still Damon's POV. **

It was allegedly 8.49 when Lucy came through the door with a 'Hey guys.' _Allegedly, _because he'd long lost faith in any and all of Klaus' timepieces.

She didn't even react to the bloody circle of gut and candles on the floor, except to frown with a look that read more like '_who's cleaning that up?' _than 'oh, I'm so screwed.' Lovely as ever, she sailed through the door. Right as rain, never mind the thing by her side that could only ever be a demon.

Fuck, he could practically smell the brimstone rolling off the guy; practically feel the hellfire burn on his cheek. Jaxxon, he'd presume.

He didn't look too bad, sort of resembled the guy who'd played Jude in a piece he'd seen…

"Well, bugger me sideways! Mag-Mag, that you?" the demon postured with his hands on his hips and a grin on his face as he made a show of his familiarity with Magwyr. He sauntered into the flat tossing his scarf carelessly over one of the potted ferns… The heels of his boot clicked smartly.

"In the flesh," Mags had the audacity to answer.

"She looks good on you," Jaxxon had the audacity to reply.

"How's it hanging?" Mannie continued, audaciously.

"I'm at half-mast just at the sight of you… But I miss the freckles…"

_Who the fuck?_

_Did they not see the prep work set up for Geraldine's resurrection? Had they missed the circle of intestine? The candles? The body in the middle?_

Lucy dropped the backpack at the door and drifted inside, stretching her arms like a lazy, tense cat. "What say we get the party cracking guys," she said flatly, lackadaisically. "You've already set up the decorations… Should have put some plastic down, but –" she shrugged.

Klaus, the unconscious body on the floor… One

Lucy, possessed by Klaus.

Then the demon, three.

Him, Mags, Elijah…

"Well, there's six of us…" Damon spoke up, introducing himself in a sort. "I think we have the numbers for a slaughter."

"Or a small orgy," the demon chirped.

"I'm up for it," Lucy added, flipping her hair over her shoulder like nobody's business, using her thumb to wipe some blood spatter off a picture on the wall, "Either… _both. _I won't mind either at this point. Make love or make war – an age old conundrum… Salvatore… Are you calling dibs on the Bloody Bonnie here, or do you want a go at this…" and the he-she spun around, "keeping in mind that I'm essentially European."

The universe itself had just smacked him upside the head. _What the fuck is going on? Why are we pow-wowing with the freak? _Elijahremained propped against a pillar and seemed immovable… _Somebody needs to start this… lay out the items… _Lucy's backpack was sitting _right_ _fucking_ _there_ on the welcome mat–

His fortitude was wavering. Strange_, _the interplay between murderous tension and sexual tension. One moment, he'd been virtually frothing at the muzzle, and now… All his doubts came flooding back again.

_Why kill Klaus? _

He didn't _want_ to. He knew that now for certain. All the guy wanted to do was create a super slave army of hybrids. What was the harm in that? And honestly speaking, he'd probably killed more people in his measly century than Klaus had in his whole _era_. Klaus'd never really done anything to cement him as a bad guy. Who'd he kill, really?

Jenna?

And only because he'd needed to.

Killing Jenna shouldn't be enough to earn a man his death.

Of course he wasn't going to take up Lucy's offer, but the suggestion had got other thoughts running through his head again. All he wanted was to exhale, relax and go back to the bloody bathtub with Bonnie. His moods were tumbling haphazardly down the stairs of his brain, smashing every strategy to smithereens.

_Why? _

Whywas he trying to kill Klaus?

_Somebody remind me. Somebody pinch me._ _Because I'm very confused._

What did Klaus have to do with him and Bonnie?

_Fuck me, _she'd said, and not in that kinda 'fuck me, Freddy' way, but in the cum-squirting, 'go down on me' kinda way… A whole new fantasy was starting up in his brain. A fantasy involving blood, white cotton sheets and exactly three fingers…

Even knowing she was possessed by the blood whore of the netherworld, he'd do Bonnie in a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat. Regardless of who was in actual control, physically speaking, she was still Bonnie. Plus Mags' little modifications like the red eyes and 'the scalp bleeding' and 'the blood crying'… He could work with that.

Honestly, if an orgy with his sworn enemies was what it took to get Bonnie spread-eagled on the counter, he was game…

_But seriously, how'd that work?_ He'd never done a proper orgy before. Threesomes were his limit… Klaus, Jaxxon and Elijah could work out an arrangement with Lucy. He was kinda fuzzy on the three-hole technique. Heard a lot about it, but never really thought it out... Three guys to one girl made sense, but seemed a little gay…

"Don't hurt yourself, Damon." Lucy snapped, eyebrows pinched. Clearly not in as good a mood as she was trying to imply. "It's basic arithmetic." She looked a little sick. Compared to the last time he'd seen her at least. She looked a little… green around the gills. Like if she'd had bad curry.

"Just trying to figure it out. I know you're into that cock-sucking thing…" he shot back.

"See what I mean, love?" the demon rounded on Lucy, "Everybody knows."

Lucy smiled tightly, stepping further into the area, sparing only the briefest glance at the mayhem on the floor. She pushed the doors open, checking the rooms. One bedroom… then the other… then the bathroom… "Remember that story about Goldilocks and the three bears?" she muttered. "I've always felt the bears should have eaten her. It only seems like the due recourse for people who trespass…" she wandered into the kitchen area and opened the fridge… "Gluttons…" She turned and planted herself on one of the counter stools, decidedly pissed. "I left a witch somewhere around here, guys. Seen her? Early twenties, curly bushy hair… She's good at orgies, slaughters, massacres, open mayhem…you name it. Real party animal."

Mannie smirked, like the imperial lady of smirks. "I gave her a rundown of what he had planned. She wasn't into it."

"Who, Greta?" Lucy put a hand to her hips. Not particularly child-bearing hips… Typically petite Bennett body… "That girl is hella kinky. You must not be selling it right…"

"We might have to make do with six, Klaus," Mags pressed.

"Lucy, darling," she flipped her hair even more exaggeratedly, "And we won't have to 'make do.' You'll run along like a good girl and fetch my witch before I start getting too severely annoyed. I get prissy and nobody wants to see that."

"Can't you find her?" Mags leered. "You've gotta start keeping your bitches on a leash."

"What's your size? You'll look good in red leather, I daresay."

"I look good in anything."

"And anybody."

The crème de la crème of evil… Damon coughed to clear his throat and to interrupt the conversation whose undertones he did not appreciate. "What Mag's is getting at, Luce, to cut a long, vague story short, is that your pet psycho went to meet her maker."

"_I'm_ her maker."

"Figure of speech… She's more or less dead. At first we were going to send her to the moon, but then we thought she might survive out there, so… we had to improvise…" he drawled out the ending. In actual fact, Mags had recanted on her moon operation because she didn't want to risk wasting too much magic. In the end, shed settled for disintegrating the woman to dust. It had played out like a cremation video in fast forward…

Lucy sighed and leant back against the counter carelessly, letting her body go loose. How could someone get so comfortable in another person's body? Damon studied her, him, searching for any minute hint as to what could be possibly going on in that head. He knew how he'd react to coming home to see his house invaded, his body mutilated and on the floor in a centre of his own guts. On top of all that, he and Mags and Elijah had taken turns at sucking the body dry. Mags had gone so far as to take out the spleen… And most of the other viscera…

Even with super healing, it'd take a while for anything to come back from that.

_No panic_?

They were moments away from summoning the most famous demon slayer of all time, and the guy couldn't muster a bead of sweat. As they spoke, Elijah had already set about laying down the items to complete the circle. Sword… Finger… Eyeball…

"By the way, Bonnie," Lucy started with a sneer, the good old British accent rolling off her tongue in the eeriest way imaginable, "or whoever you are, I killed your teenaged lover. Cooked him. Ate him. Gave me the fucking runs, he did. Salmonella, maybe… but he tasted–" she kissed her fingers – "scrumptious."

"You killed him? Jeremy?" Damon asked, innocently, out of well-placed concern and empathy. _That would explain the 'bad curry' look._ "'Cause he has a ring–"

"Not my first time in the jewellery shop, Salvatore."

_Dare I hope?_ "You mean killed him _dead_, right?"

"Very dead."

_Yay! Smiley face on the inside! _"We'll tack that on to your rap sheet, then." _Thank you, Klaus_. _Really man, thanks._

"Killed Alaric, too."

"Oh,"

He'd been slipping his blood into nearly everything in Alaric's fridge for a couple of months… The bottle of wine he sent over weekly? Yeah… at least 60% blood… "Bummer." _My bestie's gonna be a vampire! Double yay._

"Caroline and the wolf-jock too. Can't even remember how I killed them, but they're supposed to be dead."

_I'll host the wake. Open bar. _"You eat them too? What is it with you people and cannibalism?"

"It's a werewolf thing."

"Demon thing too," Jaxxon added as he slid over the back of the couch and veritably bounced on the cushions. "You know, Damon… I'm a big fan of yours. I'm glad we met before you died. I'm an avid follower, sir. I admire that thing you do with your eyes… Half the time I bet you don't even have to use the compulsion, those baby blues can compel even the tightest set of panties, am I right?"

"…"

"Even the granniest set of panties, too, I venture?"

"…"

"The grannies don't get your boat–"

Lucy flung an apple at the demon, cutting him off, before spinning on her stool round to the Original vampire who had just taken a well postured seat on the stool right next to her. "Elijah…" she drawled. "Bro. What provokes this latest betrayal?"

"I just want you dead, basically."

"Got to admire a man of few words." Jaxxon chirped again. The most talkative demon ever. "Succinct. Excellent cheekbones. The haircut suits you…"

"Thanks."

"Maybe some highlights…"

"I'll think about it."

Lucy tossed another apple, this time up instead of across. She caught it, and bit into it with a crunch. "Still fresh… Why can't we all just get along? Have a picnic or something? I was kidding before, but I wouldn't actually mind an orgy… It's been a while. Why not?"

"Mainly because we want you dead." Elijah, again.

"I know what you're problem is, Elijah. And Damon and I go way back with our love spats. But Maggie–"

"Magwyr," Mannie corrected.

"Of course… I don't see why the two of us can't negotiate. You're a witch, I'm a witch enthusiast… I used to have two but one's run off on me and you seem to have done away with the other…"

"'_Done away with her…'_ You're a master at euphemisms," she interrupted.

Lucy's face tightened again. "Any way you say it, as it is, I've lost my top two witches in the space of an hour and I need to restock so let me make you an offer you shouldn't refuse. Shack up with me, you get blood and sex privileges pretty much round the clock. Money too, if that's your thing. I'm amenable to fetishes–"

Jaxxon reared his head. "Where was this attitude in the elevator?"

"This is the Witch Package," Lucy snapped. "Are you a witch, Jacky?"

"I've been known to bewitch a man or two…"

"… Maggie," Lucy slumped in her seat, her eyes drifting up to the ceiling out of what? Boredom? "I know you've a reputation for being good at critical thinking, so help yourself out, why don't you? Otherwise, I'll have to kill you, and it'll be such a waste."

"Yeah…" she smiled. "Not likely."

Damon settled his hands in the pockets of his jeans wishing for the love of God that's he'd worn something else. He hadn't dressed for a showdown with the strongest mofo in existence. He hadn't dressed for a resurrection. In fact, he wasn't dressed for much at all. He'd had to borrow a set of clothes from Maddox despite every pledge he'd ever sworn to never in his life wear another man's clothes… A ratty grunge t-shirt and jeans… Skinny jeans…

Right then, in that moment, Damon wished he was human. Human and asleep in a warm bed somewhere. Humans never had to worry about the end of the world, or hybrids or resurrections. Humans never had to deal with doppelgängers of their ex-girlfriends popping up. Humans never had to deal with anything. Except that economy thing he'd been hearing about.

Vampires, hybrids, witches and demons… Wait a minute for the bogeyman to come knocking… Then everybody fangs out and starts going for throats. Taciturn, temperamental sons of bitches. You can chat with them and do brunch, but anytime there's a falling out, watch your back – cannibals. _Primative fuck-ups of the underworld_.

"I know, right?" Jaxxon contributed.

"_Eavesdropper."_

"You know something," the man in the tweed pleated suit beamed, "We're rooting for you back across on Demonside. You and Bonnie. She's all – 'Eat shit and die'. But you never give up, you ass-licker, you! We prefer Bonnie. That Katherine and her clone… _Boring! _Real dick-crushers, the pair of 'em… Remember when you got Bonnie's grandmom killed opening the tomb to save Katherine?" Air quotes went up around 'save'. "You had a blood bag for her and everything. For the love of everything holy and unmentionable in this world – that was _embarrassing!_ Remember that? And you cried a little bit? Bonnie's a nice mare to get back on again, though. She's a good mound, the lassie. And the two of you have this funny thing you do with your mouths… the side smile thing. Very… I want to say cute, but I'll go with 'fucktastic'. Does anyone say that? _Fucktastic_? It's big in Demonside – as in 'my, don't you look _fucktastic_ today'. Granted we're all males over there so the context is a little iffy… You get it though, _fucktastic_?"

Lucy clapped her hands with a sigh… "So, here's the do. In the interest of fairness, and out of sheer curiosity, I'll let you guys go first."

_Say what now?_

"Go ahead, Bonnie. Get to it. All your witch mumbling and fire-lighting. I'm a little sick of you trying to kill me, but I'll let you have another shot. What's the harm in that? You need the practice…" Her lips curled into a smile.

One that Magwyr matched. "Aren't you a cocky bastard."

"In every way, love."

"You're underestimating me."

Lucy smacked her lips, "For a good bit, I've actually overestimated you. Thought you were something special. One of Elijah's old girls… And Bonnie's supposed to be one of those big bad Bennett's. I'd prepared myself for some tag team action… but you darlings are barely in sync. One wants me dead, the other just wants me…"

"We mainly just want you dead."

"Tell yourself what you will love. Resurrect whichever saviour you desire. Certain _elements_ are in play that guarantee your failure, but knock yourself out. I'll go so far as to actually wish you good luck. I want to see this _Geraldine_ with my own eyes after all the hype…"

"You're that arrogant?"

"I'm that confident. I'm older than you, Magwyr. I've suffered worse witches. There used to be some good old mean ones back in the day… You get one shot, and after that fails, I kill you all and put an end to the nuisance that you accumulate to. I kill you and eat you. Any point in time you want to surrender all you have to do is yield and I let you go freely. Or I still kill you, because I'm a little pissed to say the truth. That sounds fair? Maybe we finish by the time Letterman starts? I missed it last night."

Damon's eyes shifted from Lucy to Bonnie. From one innocent to the other… Nothing about this was fair. _Fair_? Pass a dictionary.


	20. Tag me out, please?

He'd only planned to step out for a minute, but now that he was out he couldn't muscle up the willpower to go back in. Back into that cauldron of magic, that… _whirlpool _as Mags had called it. He was as much a magic aficionado as the next vampire, but he had his limits. He could take a little fire, he could handle and aneurysm every now and then… but resurrections? Resurrections went beyond discomfort. They went beyond searing pain. Standing next to Magwyr while she'd chanted had felt like dying all over again.

The older than old memory of the pain of pellets in his chest came back to him like lightning. He could almost _see _Giuseppe there holding the weapon. That initial momentary pain of death filled him and wouldn't go away. That initial locking of muscles. That shooting pain down his spine and out along his nerves. That initial crush around his ribs as the ischaemia set into his heart, as his arteries stiffened and clogged. That initial burn in his gums as his fangs flared… His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"How are _you _managing?" Jaxxon enquired as he stepped out onto the balcony and shut the panel behind him. Damon turned away from the backdrop and shrugged, conveying a thousand words with the movement of his shoulders.

"Ah..." the demon nodded, "That good? You'll find that there's a good bit of sluff that gets resurrected anytime you try one of these bad boy spells. Certain memories resurface. Major events, you know, like dying… being turned. Not recommended for tender laddies such as yourself."

_Now you tell me. _He wasn't managing very well at all. His hands were near numb, his fangs were permanently out, the fog was starting to gather around him, and the shadows were coalescing into something almost tangible. Losing control…

Every two seconds he kept having these surges of pure power up his spine and there was nothing he could do about it. Except turn into a crow and fly away… He'd been toying with that option, turning it over and around in his mind for the longest while.

_Get_ _away_…

_As far and fast as possible…_

The lightning flashed again and he hissed at it. Veritably hissed, like some kind of man-cat.

_I'm losing it. _

_I'm fucking losing it._

He'd always been one to talk about 'the switch'. He'd always been one to play with humanity, toggling emotions around… And now, when his existence depended on it, when his body felt like it was being broke in two… Not even that – _drawn and_ _quartered _more like… Now when he _needed _to save himself, he couldn't.

His teeth clamped down on his own tongue, filling his mouth with his own blood. Even his skin hurt. His fingertips were starting to blister… The way it felt, he was five degrees away from spontaneous combustion. Pretty soon he'd be gone in a puff of smoke and that'd be the end of Damon Salvatore.

_Damn._

Hepeered around the demon, through the broken shards of door and inside. Bonnie.

Still there. Still chanting.

Lucy's body was on the floor.

Klaus' original body was on the floor.

Only Bonnie was standing… Bonnie and another girl. A smaller girl. A child–

A blood vessel burst in his eye and his vision went dark, forcing him to blink away the blood.

_Another witch? Where does he keep them?_

_Damn._

….


	21. Hear it, feel it, tremulous and tender

He'd been a demon for eons.

There's a lot of hullabaloo about demons, but they're nothing special. It's not hard to become one. Once you kill the right number of people, meet your quotas, so to speak, it's smooth sailing all the way to the top.

_Eons_ he'd been at it. And never once had he felt sympathy for another creature. _Never_ _once_.

Then up popped the blue-eyed baby Salvatore, tugging at his heart strings…

Jaxxon sighed. They'd take away his "League of Evil" membership card for sure, but he had to do _something_. Klaus was the one who'd summoned him, so _absolutely_ jumping sides was out of the question, but maybe… just maybe… he could squeeze out some juice for this Damon. He let out some of his own power, shielding the baby vampire from the magic storm going on inside. "To reiterate, you _really_ shouldn't be here." He spread his arms out on the unnaturally hot stone bannister. The temperature of the air alone was enough to kill a human. Add the lightning above… his day ring had cracked and he hadn't even noticed. The sun was going to be up soon. He'd die, and wouldn't even notice. "This is so far out of your league Damon, why don't you just scat? This is no place for youth. If I were you, I'd be airborne by now. What's stopping you, man? Or are you one of those blokes who need to get burnt to learn that fire is hot?"

Honestly, those were his favourite people.

"Youth?" the baby vampire scoffed. "I'm a senior citizen… Coming up on two centuries in a couple decades."

_I know. Don't you want you to live to see it? _He painted his face in pleasant amusement. "If only all senior citizens looked like you…" He had no end to that so he left it hanging and winked. Drawling out the end of a sentence, adding a wink, a smirk… neat little tidbits to make tedious conversations entertaining. He'd been having fun with that lately, generating innuendos and utter nonsense.

"I know, right?" Damon quipped.

Jaxxon smiled. "You've got heart, laddie."

"So, you're not going to kill me, then? Or is this the "we could have been friends" speech?"

Technically, the latter. He'd come out on the balcony to end the little vampire-ling's lights. Turn him to ash. _Dasvidaniya_… "No… I'm not going to kill you," he said as he decided right there on the spot. At no point in time had Klaus specifically ordered him to kill Damon. He wasn't doing anything to specifically hurt Klaus' plans. And it wasn't as though Klaus had put all his eggs in his one demonic basket. Technically, he was just there for back up, if, _if _the summoning actually worked."I'm going to help you."

"Thought you were helping Klaus…"

_And I'll help you too. _"Yeah…_" _ Trouble with that was demons never really help _anybody_. It's kinda implied just by the title. _Helpful_ _demon_? Pshh. "You know what they say about meeting your heroes in real life…" Not that Klaus had been his hero. Demons don't like heroes. They like villains, and their favourite trick is turning regular old good guys into villains. "I was destined to be disappointed." Maybe it was just bad timing. Simple bad timing. Understandably, with the ruggedly handsome Maddox abandoning him and the witch-girl getting taken out… anybody'd be in bad mood. But still… A badass demon likes to feel appreciated every now and then.

"Klaus not evil enough for you?"

"Neither of you are. You sell yourself as villains, but I'm the only villain here. The rest of you are just anti-heroes."

_But you've got potential, my little Damon. _

Poor_, _little unloved Damon… Only give him a millennium or two and who knew? He'd never met a man with so much raw ability at the supernatural… He had '_legend' _written all over him. Well, maybe not… "This thing with Bonnie serious? No offense or anything, but last week you were serving yourself up to Elena–"

"You too?" the vampire scowled. Even his scowls were nice. "If I was still sniffing after Elena, you'd think I'd be here?" Damon ran his hands up his own arms, doing his pitiful best to suppress a shiver and chuckled. "I'm on team Bonnie, now. I love her."

"Ooo," he flinched, "L-word."

Yeah… Vampires. Sad little shadow creatures they were. Singular creatures of the night. Withering, apathetic shades lingering in a world that longed to forget them. '_You are dead, man,' _he wanted to say. '_Don't you remember dying? Isn't it coming back to you a little?' _

They never do, though. Not for long.

'_You are a rotting corpse.' _A good-looking, well preserved rotting corpse, but still… Sad, sad, funny little things, these vampires. They start out as human and then the shadows set in and lure them into oblivion.

_Damon. _So much of his humanity gone, so much still to be done away with. _What would he have been like, this boy, as a human? _ What manner of man? Dynamic, surely. Epic. The world would have been at his feet. Instead…

"You love her?" _You vampire? You dead thing?_ _You,_ _scum of the underworld, dare to love a witch? What do you hope for? Why do you hope? Why do you persist? _Jaxxon let more of his own shielding power flow out as fresh, more dangerous lightning stabbed through the black sky.

Vampires. Doomed spawn. Festering sores on the backside of all creation. Parasitic charlatans in a timeless mummer's farce, mimicking choruses and fancy dance steps to beguile young, nubile prey… "You love her?" he repeated to himself.

_Vampires cannot love, and that is a fact. The skin and bone and muscle might remain intact, but the spirit is where love is born and it is the spirit that decays in a vampire. _

_Do you still have a soul, Damon? Somewhere inside that marvellous body? In a locket, maybe? _

He should know. He was a demon, and his was the business of souls…

Vampires obsess.

_Feed, fuck, kill – and all together now!_

They possess and envy and covet. They trap. They ensnare. They lust…They…

They treasure… They protect…

_Above all things, know thyself. _

_Do you know yourself, Damon? Can you even see how the night clings to you? As steadfastly as you cling to the light? You belong to the darkness… Even though you fight it so…_

"You _say_ you love her but–"

"A demon's going to tell me about love?" The vampire said with a belittling smirk, "I'm all ears."

"Why, don't I look like a wine and chocolate type of fella?"

It's a popular misconception that demons can't love. They're known only for their uncompromising talent at hate, but the propensity for hate is always mirrored by a well of love. They only hate the people they love. They only destroy that which they cherish. It is a wicked love, almost. A wicked system.

_We fall in love_constantly_, __indiscriminately__! The effect is the same as if we never fell in love at all. Or worse. But we still love. _

_Look, right now, I'm falling in love with you. You and those blue eyes. _

Unlike vampires who get filled up with any passing trinket, who can only manage one singular passion at a time, demons are creatures of variety. They are nothing if they aren't multi-taskers. Multifaceted and poly-sided. _Okay, Damon. I'll add you to my list. Let this Bonnie destroy you the way they all do. Let her chip away at you, _fixing_ you. Let her break you into pieces. Then I'll glue you back together with my own special brand of TLC. _"You love this girl thing… This Bonnie, and you want me to arrange a 'happily ever after' for you?"

"Not really but–" another pillar of dazzling white electricity touched down, hitting the power lines and setting off sparks. Damon flinched. Every vampiric instinct in his body telling him to get away. One single affection for one single human keeping him there. "What the fuck is she doing?"

"Channelling."

"Can you help her?"

_Yes_. _But I won't. I don't help._ "Not really. Where Geraldine is, I can't breach that. Geraldine's in what I like to call Fluffytown. Everything over there is all sugar cubes and happiness. It's like an upscale version to the Other Side. Better than Witch Side too. Very posh. Gated community kind of posh. Her reward for killing one thousand demons."

"Jeez, she really tore into you guys."

"Tell me about it… Anyway, It'll take a lot of mojo to actually get Geraldine to come over. A summoning is like a finger up the ass. You can't expect a woman to come if you shove a finger up her ass," and he only just heard the way that sounded… "I mean, it all depends on the woman and whose finger it is. You see, I don't mind it at all having a finger stuck up _my_ ass. In fact, I encourage it. And if it's Klaus' finger to boot? Have you _seen_ him? I'll let him stick anything anywhere… but Geraldine is one of those 'London lady' types. Doesn't like being fingered, not one bit. Magwyr's going to have to _pull _her back to this dimension."

"I feel like if I'm catching fire from the inside out."

_Because you are._ "That's a vampire thing. Magic and the undead don't really mix." Which is the understatement of all time. Witches… Holier than everything to walk the earth with their 'servants of nature' bullshit… They never really get along well with the _other_ members of the supernatural community. Vampires? A vampire is the muck under a witch's nails. The dog-shit under their shoe… "This 'love' between the two of you… before I get all excited, you figure it's mutual?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"It has to be. She has to love me. I can make her love me."

Classic vampire talk.

"I mean," Damon continued, "She has at least ten thousand reasons not to, and I don't really have a working gameplan, so I'm more or less going to wing it and rely on my charm and good looks."

"What woman could resist–"

"Bonnie," Damon cut him off. "Bonnie's like one of those dolls that come with stock phrases – 'I hate you, Damon'; 'Fire'; 'Get away from me'; 'Don't touch me'; 'Eww,'; 'I hate vampires'.

_And you need conversation? Gag her and be done with it, mate. _He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you'd worked through that. I can smell her all over you…"

"Yeah… That's more Magwyr than Bonnie. The closest I've gotten to Bonnie turned out to be hallucinatory."

"Isn't that good enough?" It should be. "You have Magwyr working the behavioural angle for you… The sex ought to be off the walls… After this entire shebang goes off, she'll have time for you. You give her some blood, she gives you a fuck or two…"

"That's not what I want…"

_Vampires. Always wanting more than_ _they deserve. _

"I want Bonnie. My Bonnie. The only Bonnie that should exist."

"But you _need_ Magwyr." He pointed to the maelstrom churning above their heads. "Bonnie couldn't do this by herself."

"And I care?"

_Vampires don't care about anything… except what they want._

"All I want is Bonnie. I just want to grab her and get away from all of this."

"She's killing Klaus, saving the day, saving Elena–"

"Do I give a fuck?"

With his eyes all black, his fangs dripping red, his lips curled back in one of the most savage snarls Jaxxon had ever seen, he couldn't tell.

"What do you want me to do about it? Go back in time?" The look of pure hope and adoration that flashed across Damon's face in that moment was too much to bear so he added quickly, "Cause I can't."

He _could. _But he wouldn't. The last time he went back in time… shit had hit the fan. "What I can help you out with is keeping her alive."

"Why?" Damon's face blanked… It hadn't even crossed his mind that his little Bon Bon might be giving a little too much to summon this Geraldine. The winds were dying down. The fire and lightning was gradually becoming less and less intense. Damon might not be able to tell, but he was a trained demon, old in the ways of ritual resurrection.

"Why do you think Klaus summoned me? My presence here distorts the _dimension_. I'm too upper level for this realm, I make it unstable… Her magic I daresay, is going to be _iffy_."

"You're blocking her?"

"Not intentionally. It's just me being me. Geraldine's going to be a no-show." Of course, it was intentional. He couldn't very well sit back and _watch _themopen up that can of worms again. However Klaus wanted to get his kicks was one thing but Geraldine was another fucking matter entirely. He had his demon peeps to look out for. Geraldine and her fucking buck teeth could go get bent.

"The resurrection's not going to work?"

_What I just said…_"No… If she was coming, she'd have been here already… You don't think she _knows _thatKlaus undid the curse? You don't think she noticed the big fucking hybrid in the room? I noticed and I'm all the way in DemonSide."

"If Geraldine doesn't come…"

_Ahh, it's beginning to dawn on you… The lot of you are fucked. _

If he was Magwyr, or Damon, or Elijah, he'd already be so far 'd have taken to the , eternally stubborn, stupid wench as she was, would not stop. _Of all things,_ _she is not a woman of moderation. _Insteadof realising that her slayer was a no show, she'd kept amping up the magic_. She doesn't care that it's Bonnie's body she's breaking. It's been centuries since she's channelled that much magic. It's been centuries since she's had a body that could hold her power… And what does she do with it? _

_Magwyr will make a very fine demon._

Inside… _what's happening inside?_

He let his power slip out again, just a faint flicker…

_Ahh. He's back… My main man. _

He really was a handsome fella, that Klaus. The beauty was in his lips… in the slender line of his hips… He was passable attractive as a woman, but watching the hybrid strut about… flexing his own power in response to Magwyr…

_This is why I love Klaus. _Klaus, Ricky Ponting and Stone Cold Steve Austin – his top three men in the world. Count them out, go ahead. Close your eyes. Blink, and you miss it. The fucking Comeback Kings.

So fucking confident! Who shows up to a duel and says to the other guy, "Hey, why don't you go first?"

Motherfucking Klaus is who. Brilliance.

One stone and he gets Bonnie, Magwyr, Elijah and Damon all gathered together for the slaughter. In one single day… he'd managed to deal with all the pesky nuisances of his life.

He'd blinked and missed it! Damn…

_Curse you Damon. You infernal distraction!_

Hestudied the little child witch, making her way around the circle, crushing the precious items under her heel. No Greta, no Maddox, no problem. Witch number three steps up to the plate and gets things done. She'd put Klaus back in his body. Blown Magwyr out of the fucking water. _Good for her._

_I came all the way from Demon Side and still missed it?_

_Damn…_ Klaus had just gotten him so fucking pissed though… going on and on. "Oh, I don't have any friends…" "Oh, I miss my girlfriend…" "Woe is me…" _I hate mopey, suicidal wankers…_

He wasn't moping now though. He was back to action. Like the days of yore. A mouthful of fangs… Claws… a half-mane thing going… Someone or something had tripped him off.

Anastasia was positively glowing with that evil, child prodigy energy. She'd be one to watch in the next coming decades. They'd make such a badass team.

_Kill them all! Kill them all!_

He kept the smile from reaching his face, and by reflex, slowed time down.

Just in time to catch Klaus mid-lounge, claws outstretched and aimed at Bonnie's little heart. _Shit. _

_How would Damon deal with that? _

_Not well…_

_And vampires do tend to go into sleep mode when the going gets tough…_

He slowed time down even more, down to a crawl. Klaus was still moving, at about an inch a minute… his facial expression shifting ever so slowly to one of utter confusion. _He's going to be pissed._ "If I help you–"

"Help me with what?"

_Your girlfriend's about to get her heart ripped out of her chest. And as much as I like a heart-ripping, I don't want to see you get lost in the darkness without her. You'll end up like Stefan, or worse. Sad and brooding…_

_I prefer you raging. Smashing the china._

He snapped his fingers bringing time to a stop altogether. _Fuck…_

_Less_ worse than going back in time, but barely.

_And how is that fucker still moving. _You had to give it to Klaus, he had a lot of tricks up his sleeves. There weren't a lot of hybrids out there that could resist a demon stopping time. Tricks, witches, charms…

"Well," he slapped the vampire on his back. "I'd tell you to seize the moment but I've stopped time, so strictly, we'll be stuck in the moment for a while, but you get my meaning." He pointed to the snarling hybrid moving in slow motion towards the witch. "He's going to rip your girl's beating heart out. Maybe you want to go back inside and try to save the day? I don't know... Be heroic, why don't you? Ask yourself what Kevin Costner would do. Nothing says I love you like stepping up to a raging millennia old hybrid. You'll never live it down."


	22. Geronimo!

His hands were still shaking but they were getting easier to control. He barely seemed to notice it anymore. Having time frozen around you tends to be a bit distracting.

Uber distracting.

Somehow or the other, Klaus was back in his original body, fangs bared, claws ready to go…

Elijah… There was no sign of Elijah… _Hightailing bitch. _

And Bonnie… Mags was in the centre of her frozen circle and frozen candleflames, her mouth frozen mid-chant. Eyes… red and weeping. All around her was a pool of bright red blood and he could smell death on her. Literally smell death. Possibly a foot or two feet away from her was Klaus, arm outstretched and reaching towards her chest. _And reaching… And reaching… _"I thought you stopped time," he wheeled on Jaxxon.

"He did," a girl answered. A fancy, short girl. The child witch. "Only Klaus is very, very, _very _fast. Klaus exists outside of time."

A _child_… _Ten?_ _Eleven?_

"I_'_m sixteen."

Another fucking mind-reader. Damon tensed. Was he going to have to kill this girl? His fangs were just itching to bite down on something. And she was so small, so delicate. Buttery golden skin… full, pink cheeks, fine eyebrows and painted, bow shaped lips. A cute little mole at the corner of her lips… Green eyes… just like Bonnie's. The cutest snub nose he'd ever seen on a girl in all his life. Pretty. With some pretty veins on her as well.

_I'll just kill this one real quick._

"Klaus wouldn't like it if you killed me."

"And I give a flying fuck about what Klaus would like?"

"You should. Klaus shows no mercy to his enemies. And you've already upset him."

_Right… Brainwashed? _"Who are you exactly?"

"Anastasia, from downstairs."

"And?" _How had they missed her? Who the fuck else was downstairs?_

"And I'm Klaus's witch."

_Another_ _one_?

"There's Greta and then there's me."

"You share?"

"No. I live downstairs."

_Right. _She was very distracting, this witch-child. In the time he'd spent on her, Klaus had gotten his fingers that much closer to Bonnie's heart. _Who the fuck is she?_

"I'm the one who dismantled your plan. I'm a different kind of witch. I specialize in _negating_ magic. Your witch, Bonnie? Magwyr? Whatever… she'd have to be Merlin himself to work a channelling in this building."

_Fuck! _He didn't have time!He couldn't even think! If she was strong enough to counter Magwyr then she'd have to be pretty strong–"

"Pretty fucking strong."

Did he want to try to duke it out with her? He imagined she'd pack one hell of an aneurysm… "Why are you helping him?"

"Why wouldn't I? You killed my mother, Damon."

"Bree?"

"No."

"Alicia?"

"No."

…_Who else is there?_ "Annabelle?"

"No."

_Witches that I've killed… _"Mellissa?"

"No."

"Stacy?"

"No."

Kimberly? Janice? _Think, Damon? She's what, sixteen? Think witch. Think 90s. _"Can you give me a hint?"

"You killed her on Christmas Eve. 1996. You dumped her body in a canal in Detroit. They had to thaw her out at the morgue."

_Ohh… _"You mean, Esme!" Wow, the nostalgia… "You're Esme's kid? Last time I saw you, you were in diapers…" She'd grown up nicely enough though… "Sooo, how's it hanging? What is it, Klaus running a shelter for you guys or something?"

"He has a tender heart, him."

Damon spared a glance to the hybrid beast snarling at him in slow motion. _Real tender…_ "I've already been tortured once for the day… Don't really have time for round two at the moment, though." He put his arms around Bonnie and tried to lift her out of the way. Nothing doing. As effective as heaving a mountain. He tried to redirect the glacially paced but persistently encroaching Klaus. Worse than heaving a mountain. "Anastasia…" he growled, thoroughly confused and fighting the blossoms of panic. "Bonnie's one of the good guys–"

"Says who?" the girl made a face. "I've seen what the two of you do in your sick little fantasies… I don't associate with people who fuck vampires."

_Says the harem witch._

"First off, Klaus isn't a vampire. He's a hybrid. Second, I'm not a harem witch. Klaus is like a father to me and your implications are disgusting."

_Right…_

"Let's make a deal then. You save Bonnie, teleport her somewhere safe and far, far away, and I remain here and let you work out your grievances."

"As if I give a rat's ass about you, Damon." The microwave beeped off and she took out a bag of popcorn. She settled herself on the couch and stretched with a smile and a sigh. "I'm just here for the show. Drink piss and die."

_Potty mouth._

How had it come to this? Had he blinked? Had he missed something? _Why does nothing go according to the fucking plan?_

"What the fuck do I do?" he screamed at the demon, as the space between Klaus's fingertips and Bonnie's ribcage dwindled to a measly eight inches. "Help me!"

Jaxxon was sniffing at a patch of blood on the carpet. He looked up with a disinterested, empty stare. "I think I've done enough, wouldn't you say? Like this, I'm still loyal to Klaus and I've kept, your Bonnie alive. What's in it for me if I cross the line?"

"What do you want?"

"What if I say your soul?" he replied airily. "Never ask a demon what he _wants, _Damon. That's how Shakespearean tragedies start…"

_Never mind. _

He was Damon fucking Salvatore, and Damon fucking Salvatore was beholding to no one. Man, vampire, werewolf, hybrid, witch, nobody.

_Fine…_ _I'll just… _He angled and slid himself into the space between Klaus' hand and Bonnie's heart. The hybrid's fingers pressed on his chest, broke skin, pressed on his ribs, broke bone…

_All right, Damon. It's going to hurt like fuck, but let's try this own more time…_ he got up his right hand, shook it out and loosed it up…

His own hand broke into Klaus' chest assisted partially by the hybrid's own slow momentum.

Klaus' face began to curl into a smile.

_Oh, you like this? _

His fourth and fifth ribs snapped, but Damon kept himself standing.

His fingertips grazed the smooth encasing of Klaus heart.

_Right… like a game of chicken, only without motor vehicles_.

Last time, he'd done it half-heartedly… This time, he was going to put his back into it. _Second time's the charm. _"Jaxxon, in the time it takes for Klaus to heal, get Bonnie out of here," he shouted out rushed as he felt Klaus squeeze his heart, even as his own fingers tightened around Klaus', "Just get Bonnie out of here, and you can do whatever the fuck you want with my soul. Not like I'll miss it."


	23. There will be blood, and talking sheep

**AN: Shippuuden - The official Part Two begins.**

Is this… _Is this heaven?_

He'd felt Klaus crush his heart. He'd felt that with such shocking clarity... The ball of fibrosed muscle tucked away in his chest had gone pop… much like the weasel around the mulberry bush.

He was dead.

No ifs, ands, maybes, howevers, perhapses or whys about it. Dead. As dead as a murder victim.

As dead as a poisoned kitten.

Dead, like an old dog put down in the pound.

Dead, like Elvis.

Dead.

And it had happened so fast, too! One minute he'd been stepping out on to the balcony for a bit of fresh air. He hadn't been able to keep his vampire-face in check and had gone outside because he hadn't wanted Bonnie to see him like that. He'd needed just to get away for a second…

The next minute Klaus had been killing him. He'd never expected death to come at him like that. He'd never expected death to come at him _at_ _all_, not since turning vampire at least_._

When he was human, he'd expected death to find him tagged on to a bullet from a yankee. Instead, the bullet had come from his father.

_Surprise! My Bright Eyes!_ How his mother would say when she'd pick him up and spin him around until the whole world disappeared and only her face remained.

A century and change as a vampire had gotten him cocky.

Dead?

While he was wearing a grunge jersey and skinny jeans? No meaningful last words, or last minute revisions to his will? His car collection would go to Stefan, and every cent he owned would go to… Elena. Damn.

Death. Damn_._

_RIP, you Damon you…_

Now what?

He'd always expected hellfire. Raging, scalding hellfire… but he was in a field… Under blue sky, with lush safari grass blowing around his feet, the scent of pinewood and daffodils in the air. He was still wearing Maddox's grungy clothes… Sketcher's sneakers… The sun was shining, but he didn't have his ring on… and he wasn't burning to smithereens…

He took a few steps… Took in a lungful of air… _Well, this isn't too bad if it's supposed to be heaven._

_Except there's no Bonnie._ That kinda sucked. He kicked up some loose dirt, unearthing an ant nest coincidentally. Ants, but no Bonnie. The downside of sacrificing himself for the girl was that he was dead and the girl wasn't. Huh. Ironic? What had he been thinking, dying and moving on without Bonnie? Hadn't Shakespeare established that in order for the fairy tale to end happily ever after that _both _the guy and the girl had to die? The story sucks if Juliet doesn't kill herself. The audience is all 'poor Romeo', 'sucks to be you, dude', 'ha ha, jackass'.

"Juliet!" he shouted, and heard it echo off the far away tree line. _Jungle_.

_And who the fuck is Juliet?_

"Bonnie?" he shouted again, hoping against all hope that she'd send up a flare or something. He'd seen Lost. Dead people always hang out in the jungle and send off flares… Except maybe she wasn't dead… _Technically_, he'd sold his soul to the demon to keep her alive… Because that was so _obviously _a smart thing to do. _Of course,_ Jaxxon the demon would follow through on his end of the bargain and whisk Bonnie off to safety because _of course_ demons _always_ keep their word. _Soul_ _selling _always works out well in the long run, that's why it's _so_ popular.

Of course Bonnie's dead too. The fact hit him like a happy sledgehammer. Of course he was really, really sad about it, but on the bright side, he'd have company. Heaven wouldn't be heaven without Bonnie.

Of course she's dead. Unless Klaus doesn't bother and adds her to his witch harem…

_Witch harem… _What religion would he have had to follow to earn a witch harem in the afterlife? A bunch of twenty-somethings waiting on him hand and foot, sucking his toes… Buddhism?

He stretched, yawned, pushed the hair back out of his eyes, and gazed. Heaven, huh? _What does a vampire do on entering heaven,_ make for the pearly gates? Or take a back entrance? And why was there a jungle? And what would he eat? _Whom _would he eat?

_I wonder if Stefan will get to come here… _

_Of course he will. He's a registered saint. Probably has a reservation._Unlike his older brother…

What had he done to enter _himself_ into heaven? He couldn't think of any good deeds, not really. There was not a single person in the world he'd been good to… Even when he'd been human and alive, he'd been a son of a bitch. Although there was that time with that girl at the Grille who he'd allowed to go untapped because he knew she had an exam the day after.

Pretty considerate, right?

Enough to undo all the bad karma? Enough to earn him a heaven pass?

He didn't think so. Somewhere, an angel who was supposed to be on guard duty was slacking off.

_Is this heaven? _

Or some twisted form of hell? There were no other people around, he'd noticed… Was he in one of those Greek hells? One of those hells that seem pretty normal, except you're tormented by one single thing like thirst, or fatigue, or frustration… Was it _loneliness_? Honestly, he'd prefer hellfire…

Had he been damned to be alone for all eternity? He whirled around hoping to catch a glimpse of another sensible creature – man, animal or other – and came up empty.

_I'll fucking kill myself if this is hell._

Been a while since he'd actually felt sunlight on his skin, though. Nice. Sunlight with the ring was like… Was like sex with a condom… Good, but…

_La, la, la… I'm dead._

Damon laughed. He laughed until the tears came, until he had to bend over and hold his knees to keep from tumbling over. Upside to being dead, he'd see his mother again and she'd look just the way she did when she died. Okay, maybe not like that, all sweaty and bloody. She'd look just the way she did _the day before_ she died.

And she'd not recognise him…

Because he'd grown up and gotten killed and turned into a vampire and turned evil and turned just the littlest bit psychotic. He'd lost complete control of himself. He couldn't even pull his fangs back in anymore… What kind of conversation do you have in heaven with your mother with your fangs hanging out?

_Hey mom. How's the century and change been without me? _

_What big teeth you have!_

_All the better to feed on vulnerable young women with. I do that now._

_You look evil, how'd you get into heaven? _

_I am evil, but here's the deal, I died sacrificing myself for a girl and she's like a saint or something. _

_And what about Stefan? My other better son?_

Right. He stopped laughing.

He'd effectively gotten himself killed. Nothing funny about that. And if he was there, it couldn't be heaven. Probably purgatory. Or a south pacific island. Or a different planet.

What's going on in the living world, he wondered_. Earth_.

Jaxxon would have probably let time go back to normal. Hopefully, he'd have whisked Bonnie away to safety, back to Mystic Falls. Back to the remnants of her family… and her friends…and Stefan. Maybe, she'd shed a tear or two over his corpse…

What would Bonnie do to avenge him? What would Magwyr do? The memory of her in the bathtub, rushed back to him. Not the sex part. The part where she'd asked him to look out for her while she let Mags have control over her body.

So much for that.

He was dead in heaven (or wherever). It was all out of his hands now.

Honestly, he was dead and lost in heaven/purgatory/hell; Bonnie was trapped in the other side for the next hundred years ; and Magwyr was…

Free… Either free – if Jaxxon had held up on his end – or dead depending on how pissed off Klaus was.

Of all the plans he'd ever come up with, this last one he'd admit had turned into a real stink bomb.

Even if Jaxxon had rescued her, it still wouldn't be _Bonnie. _It'd be _the Thing_ who'd be getting rescued.

He'd sold his soul for _The Thing? _

_At least, _she'd reign down some kind of vengeance. She'd see his dead carcass and tear her hair out, with a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth…

"Fucking hell!" he screamed, and then listened to the echo.

They were all pretty much dead, weren't they? The entire gang. Alaric. Even if Jaxxon had carried Bonnie away, even if Klaus had decided on not killing her, Mags wouldn't give a shit about them. She'd never hang around Mystic Falls and take up Bonnie's role as Mother Martyr. The gang was pretty much screwed. It was just a matter of time before some fresh hell found them. His role in the group was to be the guy who kept everyone alive. With him dead, who'd step up to the crease? Stefan – too broken and brooding to be the leading man. Elena? _Just kidding. _Caroline?

She had the brawn for it, if not the brains.

How the fuck had _he _ended up dead when those cretins were still alive? How did Caroline and Tyler and Alaric and Elena and Stefan and for fucks sake, Jeremy, outlive _him_? _The _Damon_? _

Hadn't they fleshed out a plan B? Wasn't Magwyr supposed to have something up her sleeve? _Some trick?_

_Have I ever been so entirely disappointed in my existence? _

Maybe when his mother had given birth to a bouncing baby boy instead of a girl. He'd have done so much better for himself if he'd had a little sister to be the protective role model for. He'd have been the best ever. And they wouldn't have gotten shot through the heart over Katherine.

Magwyr.

He pitied the day he set eyes on her and got suckered into her…allure. She was supposed to be _the_ Big Bad. The Terror of the Night.

_Bitch._

All of that, undone by one girl fresh out of middle school. Sixteen going on six. Some pissant, snot-nosed diaper-wearing _child _had foiled them. Anastasia...What he wouldn't give to go back in time and snap her pretty little neck.

_Love really does make you weak. _

If he hadn't been so thoroughly distracted by Bonnie and saving her life and being a _good_ _guy_, he'd have spared a moment to chug down a mouthful of good ol' Baby Witch.

And if he'd just killed her, whatever mojo spell she'd been doing might have ended and Magwyr might have been able to finish summoning Geraldine or do her back up spell… and then Klaus might have been slain... And he'd be alive again, on planet earth where sunlight was real and _blistering _beautiful.

Anastasia… She'd been the one to get Klaus back in his original body…

Why for the love of… everything in the world, hadn't he checked the other floors?

Anastasia, from downstairs…

He'd been drifting aimlessly for about five hours, (give or take a couple more hours because time was hard to tell without his diamond studded, six hundred dollar Rolex that he'd left on Maddox's dresser after a failed attempt to get Bonnie's vomit off of it), when he came across a sign that read "VAMPIRES NOT WELCOMED." White paint on brown rotted wood.

Huh.

A funny thing for a sign to say… He'd sat down in the shade of a sturdy elm tree on a rich bed of moss and fungi to ponder what it could have possibly meant, and who in the world could have possibly put it up.

If he'd gone to hell, he'd figure vampires to be _most _welcomed in there.

If he'd gone to heaven… they wouldn't be so discriminatory. They were all about forgiveness in heaven…

Unless he was in purgatory, his fate yet to be decided by some vampire-hating power.

For the umpteenth time, he wished he was better dressed. He'd need to impress, most like. Charm, bedazzle and sling bullshit, same as usual. _Your honour, I plead not guilty… on all possible and potential charges. I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy…_

He hadn't even shot the sheriff. He'd tied her up, knocked her out, kept her in a cave and compelled the shit out of her… but he hadn't shot her. They were friends.

And he hadn't shot the deputy either. He'd ripped the deputy's throat out. He'd _drained _the deputy of every drop of blood. But he'd not _shot _anybody.

He was fast running out of things to think about. There was always talk about vampires going to ground, hibernating for a century or two to meditate. He'd gone half a day in isolation and was ready to bash his own head in with a rock. A century of solitary confinement? Yeah. Right. _I'm a fucking socialite._ He needed a cellphone. A bartender. Somebody. _Anybody_.

He'd not even mind Jeremy. They'd been almost friends early on in the game before all the neck-breaking had started.

He'd meditated, pondered, obsessed, analysed, scrutinized, regurgitated, and relived every significant memory in his cranium and was fresh out of juice. So he started singing Creed. It wouldn't hurt to sing some Creed, just in case he actually was in heaven. Creed, Enya, and Pavarotti should be safe. No Eminem.

Eternities or hours later, he came to another sign.

'SERIOUSLY VAMPIRE, GET TO FUCK OUT'.

_So… not heaven then._

His vampire eyes had made out a trail of dust in the air, and he'd decided to hide in the bushes and surveil. Spy. Whatever.

Up ahead, quarter mile, half mile, was a fence. A real makeshift contraption of wood and barbwire.

And horses…

And a security officer, or shepherd or rancher or whatever the fuck. Two people were arguing with him, both tall, both men, both… A whiff of brimstone and the doggy after-flavour of werewolf… Could it be? Most definitely not heaven if those two are here…

He stepped out from the bushes, bristles catching on his shoelaces… _shoelaces, ugh_… "Klaus?" he hailed them, and tried to sound friendly. Tried to smile, tried to wave… As if they were two casual passers-by on a Sunday afternoon stroll on the Normandy promenade and _not _mortal enemies fresh off of trying to kill each other. "Jaxxon?"

"Yeah." The demon looked worse for the wear… His eyes were rheumy and red. His skin was blistering badly as if someone had assaulted him with a potful of boiling rice, and his ponytail kept dropping strands. The demon sniffled.

"Allergies?"

"I'm allergic to _this_…" and the demon made a vague fluttery gesture all around him. "All this purity, and magic and blue sky shit…" he sniffled again, and rubbed at his eyes. "So much fucking morality in the air, I can smell it. When the weather gets judgy like this, my demonitis flares up. "

Klaus stretched, looking a bit dazzled by the sunlight, but otherwise stout and hearty. In a good mood, almost. "Damon," the hybrid greeted him and chuckled. "They really do let anything in." He turned to the shepherd man and made a mock bow. "This is the ass-hat I was referring to. Reached in and crushed my heart. Completely unplanned. All I'm saying is while I'm here…"

Theshepherd man gave Damon the once over with his beady buggy eyes, shrugged and fixed Klaus with a dull, bored stare. "And? I'm still not letting you in, _vampire_." His voice was a gravelly drawl, as if he'd failed to clear his throat for decades gone and allowed crude sludge and sedimentation to take up in his voice box. He was bare chested and wore sheepskin…

_Correction…_The shepherd man was half sheep from the waist down.

_He's half sheep. _Which would make him more of a sheepman than a shepherd_._

_I died and went to Narnia…_

The strange creature leaned on the post with lazy, half-lidded eyes. Grey, matted chest hair on top. Dirty brown, equally or more matted fur, or wool, below.

Damon felt his face crease as his body froze up mid handshake with the man-thing.

_Unicorn!_

There was a unicorn, running in circles behind the sheep-man-thing, rearing up on its hind legs every lap or two and whinnying like a Shetland pony. Curious and curiouser.

"_And," _Klaus continued, directing his words to the freak-sheep-man-thing, "It's _his _faultwe're here. I _know _I'm off schedule, but you can let me in."

"I know I _can. _I'm physically capable of letting you pass, but I _won't_."

"Don't you recognise me? I'm _the _hybrid."

"Yeah…" the freak drawled, "_The _hybrid! Right! You signed my yearbook, didn't you? Most likely to turn cannibal."

_Whoa, sarcastic too? _Damon felt the beginning of a headache start up at his temples. He was having the most severe WTF moment of his life. Domesticated unicorns, sarcastic sheep-men…_ We are not in Kansas. Or heaven. Or Wonderland… Let's go with Narnia. _

Klaus sighed and turned away from the sheep-thing with a dismissive hand gesture. "So Damon, reckoned you'd have your witch break into my place, resurrect a demon slayer and kill me once and for all, did ya?" For some reason, he'd decided to use a hillbilly accent to say that.

_Ass. _Damon swallowed.

He could be the bigger man, take the high road. He could let things slide… He was dead after all, no better time to turn a leaf. "And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for your damned bitch downstairs."

"Ahh…" Klaus grinned. "Ninety-nine problems but a witch ain't one," the grin spread all over his face. "Little Annie. Cute kid. Prodigy. So…," Klaus sighed, "You know, it didn't have to get dirty between us. I wasn't _bothering_ you, really. Greta wasn't _bothering_ you. The only _real_ person we've killed is Jenna, and come on, be honest, mate. Who misses Jenna? She seemed the lonely frowsy type to me… Sure the school teacher'd be out stag on Saturday night at the Grille but he'll bounce back I'm sure. He's a full head of hair… good teeth… a salary, meagre though it may be…"

Damon nodded. Alaric had done all right for himself following Jenny girl's untimely demise. A touch of depression, with a hint of schizophrenia, but okay, more or less.

"Leave it to Damon, though, to do something out of this fucking world," Klaus continued, cracking his knuckles. "Suicide, really? I mean, you grab my heart, I grab yours. I grow mine back, you simply die… Do you ever think these things through?"

_Wait… _Damonsquinted, trying to work it out in his head. "If I didn't kill you, how come you're here with me? Are you dead or not dead?" They were _all_ dead? _They really let just about anybody in…_ "What's happening here?"

Jaxxon spat, a thick glob of pink-tinged mucus landing on a bluebell. "Damon, which part of immortal don't you get?"

The core concept, apparently. Sunlight flashed in his eyes, dazzling him. He straightened his back, bracing himself for bad news. _What's going on in the real world? Who's dead? Who _else_ is dead, beside me? _

"You crossed over," Jaxxon added.

"Crossed over to where? Where the fuck are we? Hell?" He could very easily imagine hell as being doomed to suffer Klaus and the demon for all eternity.

"Not hell," Jaxxon stuttered and coughed, as though the very air was toxic. "Worse. Witch Side. The Aventine, officially. All that magic in the air… unstable dimensional gates… ritual resurrection… channelling circle... It's a wonder the entire hotel didn't cross over."

_Fucking what now?_

Jaxxon sighed and wavered, exasperated by the effort. "Focus, Damon. The Other Side. Or more precisely, _a _side in the composite of _other_ side_s._ …And you're lost. Let's take it from the beginning. _Magwyr_ was channelling her magic into summoning Geraldine. A resurrection, check?"

"Check."

"Now, the witches own _seven_ realms of the Other Side. Seven planes, named after the Seven Hills of Rome, discovered and founded by Cassandra the priestess. The Aventine, the Capitoline, the Palatine, the Caelian, the Quirinal, the Esquiline, and the Viminal, and they ascend in that order. This is the Aventine. The first stop. When a witch dies, she comes here by default and guides the witches she left behind. When she racks up enough power points she earns a key, _figuratively speaking, _and moves on to the Capitoline, and so on. When she reaches the end in the Viminal, she gets to choose between staying there and continuing the good guiding work, moving on to the Great Beyond, which I know nothing about so don't ask, or resurrection to the living world. Geraldine is holed up in the Viminal, no doubt settling for option number one. To resurrect her would have required Magwyr breaching _seven_ planes. Geraldine's reward for genocide was to be put _automatically_ in the furthest plane away from all human concerns. If she wanted resurrection, she'd have resurrected herself. No witch in the world would even attempt to _summon_ out of the Viminal… except Magwyr. Maybe if she was at full power she'd have a shot," the demon shrugged, "but because of my presence, Anastasia doing her negating spell, and Geraldine's own recalcitrance, the resurrection went kablooey. Check?"

"Check."

"And this is where it gets tricky. You've got two first class witches together doing two first class spells – resurrection and negation. Then you've got Klaus just _reeking_ murder–

"I don't _reek_ murder," the hybrid cut in.

"You do, love," Jaxxon countered nodding profusely. "Then you've got yours truly. There's a reason they keep us locked up. I stopped time." He put his hand to his chest and gave Damon a _look_, "Guilty as charged. At that point, I thought you were going to do away with Anastasia, to be honest. I don't much like her – a bit too entitled for an orphan. I'd figured we'd have a win-win situation, at least. Geraldine stays dead. Bonnie stays alive. Nobody had to get hurt… except Anastasia. Instead–" he jabbed a finger at Damon chest. "You decide to go all Suicide Sam. You _rip_ out Klaus' heart. He crushes yours… Murder all around, the dark energy gets pumping… See, _normally_ you'd die and Klaus would dust it off like lint, _but…"_

"But?"

"But, when you've got so much witchy power in one place even _dying_ gets complicated. You died. Your soul got kicked out of your body, but trick is, is didn't go anywhere, and _your_ Bonnie felt sorry for you and instead of letting you pass on… to the Great Beyond, she sucked you into the Aventine. Klaus thought he'd tag along because, if you haven't noticed already, he's into this kind of occult spirit travel shit. And I," Jaxxon wiped a tear away, "came along for the ride and to see how you were doing."

Amazingly, he'd followed all of that. And he was kinda touched. _I'm doing alright. Trying to keep my head up. You know how it is. _"How do we cross back over?"

"We?" Klaus chuckled. Sunlight really does suit him. Fucking dirty blond hair… "Unlike you, Damon, witches don't hate me."

"Except Bonnie."

"Bonnie doesn't hate me. All of this is just one big misunderstanding. Witches love me. They greet me with open arms. Truth is, I'm usually quite welcomed over here." He shot the sheep-man a glare. "I've never in my life killed a witch. Except one who had it coming. I'm a big fan of the magic and the voodoo and all that. They're a very kinky band of people if you spend time getting to know them. Tight knit, too. Lots of twins and sisters… Honestly, I can't wrap my head around you Salvatores. Of all the things to do with a witch, murder? At any point in time, I have at least fifteen different witches willing to move mountains for me, because I've got this thing they call _social_ _skills_. While you make your Bonnie live in an abandoned, decrepit witchhouse that's likely to fall in on her someday…" he snorted in disgust. "Case in point – Anastasia. She's not too expensive to take care of. A bucket of blood every now and then. Some school fees. Clothes. A pet… A new phone… A Sweet Sixteen Birthday at the Hilton where she can show off on her little prep school friends... Subtly compelling the Portuguese foreign exchange student to be her boyfriend… Simple things really, and voila. One witch ready to kill for me. She's doing her thing as we speak…"

"She'll get us out?"

"Us? Again with the plural pronouns, Damon…" Klaus began undoing the buttons of his shirt. Impromptu strip show…"There's no _we_. _We're _not friends. I just killed you. And I enjoyed it. I wish I could go back in time and do it again, but I'll settle for the surveillance video."

"Your first snuff film?"

The hybrid laughed "You can tell? I'm in a good mood, really. I _love_ the Aventine. Old friends…" he unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his jeans, "It's not every day a fellow gets free passage down here." Then he scowled, "Just some business to handle…"

"Like?"

"Like the private kind. And I've a message for Annie's sister. Marie… One of those old school, New Orleans occult priestess types, you know?"

Damonknew. He remembered Marie. Freckles. Curls. Big grey eyes. He nodded at thehybrid, who was coming out of his boxers… _ugh_…

"So," Klaus continued, stretching in the sun, "after having killed you, protocol says that I go on to kill and destroy everything you ever loved…and everyone who ever knew your name… and anyone who could recognise your mug shot… and your goldfish, but I'll let it slide this one time, how 'bout?" the hybrid negotiated with a beaming grin as he stood there naked. He folded his clothes and handed them to the demon.

Damon's eyebrows furrowed. His forehead creased.

"Who knows," Klaus continued. "This is the Aventine, anything is possible. Maybe you find your Bonnie lass, and maybe she convinces the gang to resurrect you. I don't see them bending over backwards to do you a favour but maybe. I daresay the world might be big enough for the two of us. You stick to Mystic Falls and I stick to everywhere else. How 'bout it? The next time any one of the gang tries to kill me or mine, though, I won't even ask questions. I'll just start the mayhem, yeah? Truce?"

He'd like to say no, but did he really have a choice? "You won't go after Elena anymore?"

"What's that to do with you? You're fucking dead, matey. Elena shouldn't even factor, but if it's a deal breaker, say so."

_It's not._

"Good. Stefan's like a brother to me, and Bonnie… She's a bitch through and through, but I've a soft spot for bitches and witches, and witchy bitches in particular. I'll forgive her. She might have to get down on her knees and beg for it, but I daresay, we'll hammer something out."

_I'll just ignore all of that._

"What about Elijah?"

"What about him?"

"Nothing."

"So, are we _cool_?" And Klaus' grin grew just a little wider.

_No, I still hate you. I hate you even more than before. _"Like refrigerated cucumbers."

The hybrid laughed and the sound spread through the grassy emptiness. One of the unicorns reared and whinnied. Another one spontaneously cleared a hurdle. And there were butterflies too, that he hadn't noticed before. _Why don't butterflies blossom when I laugh? _

"Try not to look so disappointed, will you, sweetheart?" Klaus smirked. An especially nasty expression on him. "You _had_ to know I was bound to kill you someday, interfering with my business like that. Albeit too little a tad too late, but you're starting to get the gist, right? That I'm immortal, yeah?"

Damon twisted. _Did he have to take this? Really? _

Klaus continued, "If all of this teaches you a lesson, I'm glad. I can be all menacing and snarling, but that doesn't seem to work with you people… I'd tried not killing you and lot where that got me. You took advantage of my bleeding heart."

Damon's throat made a sucking, choking sound.

Klaus, still naked, went on. "Gallant gesture and all that, by the way – standing in front of her to take the bullet. Very _Kevin_ _Costner_ of you – but what did you think would happen?" the hybrid twisted his face into an even nastier, grimier smirk. "I'd give ten bucks to know what was going through your head at that point. Jaxxon had _stopped_ _time_ for _fucks_ sake! You could have done _anything! _You could have bashed my skull in with a poker, had you thought of that? You could have ripped Annie's head clear off her body! Even if you wanted to rip _my_ heart out, you could have done it from _behind_! There was _loads_ of time before I reached Bonnie," he laughed. "Damon, Damon, Damon," he said as he went down on his hands and knees. "I've gone fishing with Atilla the Hun. I've feasted with Myrmidons. Trust me when I say that I've learnt the hard way to keep my fucking bases covered. You want to kill me? To kill me, you'd have to _be_ me. As wicked as me, as savage as me… as totally badass as me. Otherwise," his lips curled, "Otherwise, you can't touch this."

Then he transformed into a wolf. No screaming and loud bone breaking – fluid. Peaceful.

Klaus, the wolf, howled. Once, twice… gave a toothy snarly grin…

"By the way love," Jaxxon said and sneezed. "I saved your girl's body, dropped her off at her papa's. Your soul is mine." Then he went _poof_.

"Jackass," the shepherd man thing muttered under his breath, breaking his black beady eyes away from the shrinking form of the wolf. Now, only Damon and the thing remained. And the awkwardness settled between them like a mist.

So yes, he was dead. His heart crushed by Klaus, according to Klaus. And Bonnie… her spirit was somewhere on this _other side_ with him… with his spirit since his body was dead… And her body was back in to Mystic Falls. At least, that's where Jaxxon had dropped it. Knowing Magwyr, it wouldn't stay there for long. She'd recover, feed on the populace a bit, then move on to greener, lustier pastures.

Damon cleared his throat. "So this is witch country, I take it? The Aventine?"

"Be sure to check out our museums," Sheep-Man drawled lethargically.

"And what is this, a unicorn ranch?" It certainly looked like a unicorn ranch… which would make the sheepy centaur more of a cowboy than a shepherd… technically speaking.

"Taxi service, really," the thing shrugged. "Want a ride?"

Ride on what? Him or the unicorn? They _both_ looked like beasts of burden. "How much?"

"Just a little bit of your Power. Give up your Crow Power and you get to ride one for the day."

Right_. _

How long had it taken him to get that Crow Power? How much had he sacrificed?

_The ability to turn into an animal does not come cheap… _

_Does he know what I am?_

He still hadn't been able to retract his fangs or get his eyes to go back to normal so it should be pretty obvious that he was _not_ a twelve year old girl. Only a twelve year old girl would put out for a unicorn ride. He was a grown man. Unicorns could suck dick and die as far as he was concerned. Nothing special about them except a stupid horn…

There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to get him drunk enough to trade real _power_ for a unicorn ride.

_What's the average IQ of a sheep-man? Because he'd have to be retarded to think I'd go for this. It just a stupid fence… _"Actually I'm looking for someone," he leant in closer to the sheep-thing over the fence, co-conspirator like, "maybe you can help me out, Mr…"

"Sheep-Man."

"That's your name?"

"That's what you've been thinking so you can as well as say it to me face, can't ya? Say it out loud…"

_Right… telepathy. I don't care. _"Anyway, Sheep-Man. I'm looking for a witch. She's somewhere around here and I need to find her."

"Ah," the freak perked up, "Shouldn't be too hard. Young or old?"

"Young."

"Black, white, or Chinese?"

"Chinese."

A moment passed where the two of them met each other's eyes. "Hot?"

"Yeah."

"Subjectively or objectively hot?"

_Huh. _On his idle days, he'd spent many an hour thinking about centaur mating habits. What turns them on, the animal or the human? The idea of a half sheep monstrosity of a man even remotely checking Bonnie out in a sexual way, made him want to scramble his brain with a fiery red poker.

How dare he ask if she was hot. There were days when she wasn't all that to the causal observer. Days when she wore those poncho things and fifteen layers of cloth. He'd seen her in shorts once in an entire year. But he'd seen her naked too… "Objectively hot."

"You sure?" Sheepman's eyes twinkled. "You had to think about it for a while. Sure she's not fugly and working some kinda enchantment on you? Witches do that, you know. Eyes?"

"Green."

"Nose?"

"Normal?"

"I think I know who you're looking for."

"Yeah?"

"I call her Pop-Tart. Came in a couple days ago, traded in for Magwyr, right?"

Came in with what, the tide? A cargo shipment? "Yeah. Bonnie."

"One o' them Bennetts, I reckon?"

"Bonnie Bennett."

"Right."

"Right. So can you call her for me, or whatever? I need to see her." They'd get together and make sense of this whole _dead _situation. She'd explain it out for him, and they'd come up with some way to cross back over, the two of them, to the real world. Klaus professed to have a love for the Aventine, but then Klaus was a botanical gardens kinda guy. Open wilderness was his kinda thing. Damon? Not so much. Forests? Rivers? Wildlife? Ugh. Green grass? Cool breezes caressing his skin? _Ugh_. He'd rather his Egyptian cotton bed sheets and Bonnie's skin… He was two seconds away from losing it. From screaming out loud and ripping his hair out.

And nobody was getting that.

"I really need to meet up with her." Everything would be a-okay when he set eyes on Bonnie again. Picked up where they left off…

"Oh," Sheepman turned and pointed randomly to a patch of trees in the open distance behind him some miles away. "She's _way _over there. And I'm way over here… I'd go call her, but my arthritis…"

_Fucking_ _hell_! "I'll go…" Damon's voice pinched, and his right eye twitched. "I'll rent your unicorn or whatever. I'll give you my Crow Power."

"Yeah…" Sheepman cocked his head. "I just noticed… you're a vampire too."

_You just now noticed? What are you, blind?_

"Yeah. Cataracts. Both eyes."

"Just let me go through–"

"Ever heard of a lovely film – Rabbit Proof Fence? About the ordeals of the Australian aboriginal people?" The mutant sprawled his human-looking hands along the wire. "Consider this is a Vampire Proof Fence. Read the sign," he pointed to yet another one, "Only witches allowed. We've already got a demon and a hybrid, can't be letting _you _in too."

"I'm a vampire."

"Are you a vampire-witch?"

"No, but–"

"Then fuck off."

"You let Klaus through."

"Can you turn into a wolf? I need to correct the sign. It should read, 'Only witches and people who can turn into wolves allowed'."

_Bastard. Are you shitting with me?_

"No shit whatsoever. I don't make the rules. I just enforce them."

"Let's start this over from the top. I'm looking for Bonnie–"

The thing nodded. "That's nice…"

"It's important. I'm dead, and she's in danger and she needs me and–"

"Yeah, well…"

"You just let Klaus inside. Klaus wants to kill her. You _need_ to let me in."

"I cannot care _more,_" the sheep-man said and yawned. "Pop-Tart's a good kid. My heart weeps with concern…"

"I'll kill you." And he really would. In all his long life of murder, Damon had never wanted to kill _anything _half so much.

"See how I tremble in my cloven hooves… sigh."

"Klaus is going to kill her if you don't let me through."

"Eh… I don't think so. Klaus knows the rules – no biting, no killing, no feeding… You? I'm not so sure. You look like one of them _evil_ vampires."

_Eh?_ As opposed to what other kind? "I'll pay you. Cash."

"Gee, thanks so much. I've been meaning to buy a Kindle and catch up on some reading. Did you pass the local Best Buy on your way in? That's where I do most my shopping. Love their Christmas sales. _Super_ discounts."

Damon swallowed. Was he being vague? Ambiguous? "Listen to me! I'm going to get across this fence one way or the other Sheepman. All that's up for you to decide is if I'm having mutton for dinner or not. You feel me?"

"Klaus hit me with that shot five minutes ago. Get something original."

"Sorry…" Damon tested the fence, laughing cagily. _Sorry…_ No one flipped the electricity switch. Just wire? Plain old barb wire?

_Alright… hold_ _on_, _Bonnie_.

He'd never fed on a sheep-man before, and he _was_ a little bit hungry…

Always good to try something new… What could it hurt, to try something new? "I'm not going to _eat _you," he laughed easily, using a little bit of soothing charm to smooth it over. "I didn't mean that. Vampires don't eat mutton anyway. We're…" he jumped the wire frame, landed on the other side… One of the unicorns reared up.

The Sheep Man's face paled, as if he'd never seen a dude jump a fence before.

_Yeah, you're dead. _"We vampires are on this new liquid diet…"

**AN: Too weird? None of the other chapters are this long, no fear.**

**Sorry for the massive delay, but life took a cricket bat to my cranium. Also, I'm internetless, so i had to recover from my agoraphobia to reach a cafe. Ta Da!  
><strong>


	24. New vamp on the block

Do food stamps really not buy diapers?

That didn't sound right. What kind of society would give out food stamps but not let you get diapers with it?

If they didn't buy diapers, they'd probably not buy blood bags… Not that he ever paid for the blood, but how much easier would it have been if somebody gave out _vampire_ _food_ stamps? He'd go every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, join the line and pick up a couple of bags. That way he'd not have had to kill those hundreds of people that he had.

He licked his lips and got to his knees, flicking the dirt and wool off his hands… the new blood in his system dizzying, like fine red wine. Or heroine. _Mm…_ He wiped his hands in the sides of his jersey, not caring at all about stains. Not his clothes anyway, and besides all that he was dead. Who gave a fuck?

_Which way is Bonnie again?_

The sheep-man had pointed, but in all the hurly burly he'd… forgotten.

A grand fucking waste of time he'd been, the sheep-man. And in the end, he hadn't tasted that much different from a normal man… just a little fatty, maybe.

_I feel… _but he couldn't recognise the feeling. It was halfway between feeling drunk, feeling drugged and feeling ecstatic. Maybe if he fed some more, it'd get better… The sheepman was already drained dead, but one of the unicorns might do the trick.

…

He frowned as a drop of blood on his eyelashes coloured half the world pink. One sheep-man, three unicorns… He really shouldn't overeat. Bonnie was waiting for him, possibly half naked in the shade of some jungle tree or the other, wallowing in despair and need of him. Her urgency ought to speed him on his way. So what if he wasn't in heaven, he was with Bonnie, which was better than heaven. He'd find her and touch her and fuck her forever and be happily ever after.

Except, he'd have to find her.

And the journey might be long...

He should stock up on some more blood, maybe… So as not to starve off halfway along the way. When he finally ran into her, he shouldn't be hungry and thinking about draining her.

And the unicorns were easy on the palate… They looked like horses, but the flavour? Definitely more refined. _Cured_. _Way _better than horse.

It was the summer of _59_ when he'd tried his hand at animal blood. Done a stint on a by-road farm tossing hay and preying on the populace. Not a whole lot happening on the farm in way of entertainment, but there'd been Mr Birchall's three daughters, the big, buxom bitches of Bixley County who'd done their best to make his nights exciting at least.

Good times…

_See?_

As he thought about it, some of the best times in his life had come after he'd been turned. He had no reason, really, to be some surly whirlpool of regret. So what if he was a mass murderer? A lot of normal humans are mass murderers and they did it for fun. _I do it for food. _

_And fun._

Should he be ashamed of himself? Of what he was? Were lions ashamed of being the king of the jungle? Were sharks ashamed of the bad PR the get?

Bitches and witches and sheep-men would argue that yes, he should be ashamed. Yes, he should take his ring off and go sunbathing… But… _I like being a vampire._

_I like being a vampire in Witch Country._

It seemed as though the very air itself had nourished him. And the blood was better. _Richer. _The unicorns were still frolicking nearby. Not the smartest apples in the pie, unicorns. He'd have to _skin_ one probably for them to notice him. A real pride of lions would have a feast.

_Skin one and make a coat out of the skin_…

Unicorn skin ought to be better than leather… except he'd have to find a seamstress.

A sharp wind blew and snapped him out of his daze.

Focus, Damon.

_How many more unicorns before we go look for Bonnie? _Two_. Two? _Four_. _Five._ Nine? _Pick a number and stick to it.

It had to be the weight of the horns, he figured, interfering with the development of their brains. No wonder unicorns went extinct in the real world… stupider than dairy cows…

As he shoved the carcass of his twenty-third unicorn off of him, he gave up hope of witnessing a stampede.

_Boring…_

_Moving on…_

_Just ten more._

A couple actual_ flying_ squirrels, but they tasted like shit.

He only had about six of those.

A couple dwarves. When he'd spotted them, he'd assumed they were the magical kind of dwarf. Turned out they were more the _little people_ kind of dwarf. Regular old humans…

He washed the taste of midget out his mouth with the blood of another sheep-man. A sheep-woman, to be correct.

_Stefan would love it over here… _There was another centaur species around – all female. Half-woman, half-Bambi. Sure to get Stefan's boat rocking.

They hadn't tasted too bad, either.

Better than the squirrels at least.

And there was something he was supposed to be doing.

Someone he was supposed to be hunting… He shut his eyes and took in the sounds and the scents on the air.

_Bonnie…_

Her concentration faltered, her fingers wavered and she broke the power circle. She gasped, then tried to stifle the sound as the other witches reformed the circle without her. The leaves rustled, the wind stilled and silence returned awkwardly to the grove.

"Bonnie…" her grandmother mouthed, employing words for the first time in a long time. The old woman's eyes turned to the sky, to the dark grey clouds rolling over each other blotting out the sun and its golden warmth. "Something is destroying the balance," she intoned. "The Aventine is in chaos."

_Yeah…_ Bonnie swallowed and shifted her gaze towards a wilting carnation… Not something. Damon. "Klaus. Klaus crossed over."

Sheila gave her a look. "I know Klaus. Klaus," she pointed to the sky, "doesn't do this. He might be just as crazy as the next bloodsucker but he doesn't disrupt the balance. He moves through magic like an otter down a river. This smells like Salvatore."

Bonnie's eyes went wide in open guilt and innocence simultaneously. "I didn't–"

"You did. You saved him and brought him here–"

"I couldn't just let him die!" she ground out. "He–"

Sheila seized her by the shoulders, shook her hard. "He's already dead! He's been dead for a long, long time, girl. He might _look_ as if he just walked out of one of your magazines, but that _thing _isn't some human that you have to save."

Bonnie swallowed, for some reason fighting back tears already. When she'd pulled Damon over, she hadn't been thinking clearly. She hadn't thought it out; she hadn't worked out a roommate situation with rules on what and who was and wasn't for feeding on. She'd been watching the anarchy unfold horribly in Klaus' flat and she'd seen the hybrid move to kill her, and she'd seen Damon step in between the two of them, cover her heart with his…

So what if he was evil and a jackass and a mass murderer – he wasn't mass murdering _her. _She wouldn't ever cherish being the damsel in distress, but it was nice seeing Damon, selfish, perpetually-in-love-with-Elena, impeccably dressed, impossibly good-looking Damon _volunteer _to be her knight in armour. Could she put that into words? How mind-blowing it was having someone actually step up to die for her, instead of the old humdrum… Could she explain that to Sheila? "Damon–"

"Save it, child. I can see the infatuation in your eyes. Damon's good at that, charming and soothsaying. Very handsome, eyes like lightning… And it won't bother you at all that he's looked like that since _my _grandmother was alive. Damon…" Sheila sighed and her face looked pained. "The first time I saw him… he was just settling into depravity. Not half so attractive as he is now. Not half so evil, either. He's cultivated an air around him, this attractive essence – like nectar, if you will. And you're the little hummingbird flitting around him because you just can't resist. You can't save Damon, baby girl. He's got just enough of his humanity left to realise what he's becoming, enough, it seems, to trick you into thinking that you can trust in him. Maybe it's not even intentional. Maybe he's holding on to the remnants of that humanity, maybe he even wants to love you, but he can't. He can't _do _anything but what he's been doing for the past century. He can't _love _anyone other than that vampire he's been in love with since he was human. He's static. Frozen. He can't– Love is exclusive to living things."

"He likes me. He cares–"

"Whether you live and die, maybe. Vampires like having a witch in the wings, just in case they need a magic ring or a tomb opened. You'd settle for that? You're so jaded that you'd settle for a vampire being _in_ _like_ with you? You'd allow yourself to be an accessory? A ring, a necklace, a pretty pendant just dangling off some dead thing's fingers? You're powerful, Bonnie, and the only thing a man appreciates more than power is beauty. You've got both in spades. You don't have to hold on to some newborn infatuation as though Damon is the only man in the world who'll look at you twice."

"More than twice," she responded, but under her breath because it wasn't the snazziest comeback in the world. Good old grams always had a way to make her feel like shit, but in a good, uplifting sort of way. "I couldn't let him die, grams. Dead or alive, hero or scum of the underworld, I owed him one. I had to save him."

"You saved him alright." Sheila turned away and sniffed the air. "Saved him and set him down at the buffet table. Can't you smell the blood in the air? Things like him aren't supposed to be here. His darkness… isn't supposed to be here. All the shadows are flocking towards him, making him strong and weakening us. His kind are anomalies of nature. We have no power over them here…" her voice dropped to a whisper. "Your vampire is power drunk, blood drunk, magic drunk and on a little bit of a rampage… It's just a matter of time before he helps himself to some witch-blood and then all hell breaks loose…"

_Ominous words. _It had been a while since Bonnie had thought her grandmother was a loony… "Damon's not going to _unleash_ _hell_… He's changed. Since that time when–"

"When you blamed him for my death? Whatever happened to all that hate?" Sheila frowned, her eyes distant, trained on the shifting clouds in the sky. "Not that it was justified, but I slept better when you were swearing vengeance on every Tom, Dick and Harry. Now you're falling in love with every pretty vampire to bat his eyes at you–"

"I'm not–"

"Don't lie to me, baby girl. Don't lie to yourself. I've been watching over you like a hawk. Ben – he was vampire number one. Then, you had that thing for Stefan. A _little_ thing, but I didn't like it. All he has to do is smile at you and you turn into a one woman Make-a-Wish Foundation."

"Stefan's a good guy."

"Stefan's a vampire. Since when are vampire's _good?_" The woman frowned. "He's fresh off a murder tour, blood still under his fingernails and you're swearing to all God that he's a good guy. Listen to yourself."

"That was because of Klaus."

"He's another culprit," Sheila scoffed. "Klaus… Every time he calls you 'love' your heart does this stupid little flutter. What is it exactly that Klaus does to you girls? To have you tripping over yourselves, bending over backwards for him?"

"Bending– I've spent _months_ coming up with a way to kill Klaus. I'm here– I gave up my _body_ to kill Klaus so don't you–"

"You're not trying to kill Klaus, you copped out!"

"I copped out?" she was crying now. "I copped out? You're the one who died!"

_Ooh. That was low. _The knot in her throat tightened, strangling her.

The old woman nodded, digesting it coolly. "You copped out when you passed the baton over to Magwyr. Anything you want to do, you do it with your own strength or it doesn't matter. You want to save your friends, do it with your own strength. You want to kill your enemies, do it with your own strength. You can't use another witch, or allow another witch to use you."

"I'm not strong enough to kill Klaus."

"You aren't," she agreed flatly, "You aren't _mentally_ strong enough. You're not strong enough to kill anybody and you don't even want to be. That's what you want to borrow – Magwyr's stone-cold ability to kill. But some people need killing Bonnie and you need to be able to do it with your own hands. Klaus is one of those people."

"I know that."

"Do you? You've had exactly three daydreams about him, though…during math class. By the way, I won't _guide_ you to an A come exams, so study that calculus or prepare to flunk high-school math and not graduate… unless you're looking into ways to stay in high school forever. Some vampire or the other will probably change you so you'll get to be seventeen forever, stay in senior year forever, never give me grandchildren and suck people's blood for the rest of your life. That's what you want, right?"

"Grams–"

"No. Don't deny it. Denying it is what got you into this mess in the first place. Admit it. Admit what you feel for them, and move on. Put it behind you."

"Grams–"

"I see it in you. Even now, every time you see Stefan a little piece of you hopes that's he's just swinging by to say 'hey, how ya doing', and every time you're disappointed because all he cares about Elena, and that little piece of you wonders why Elena and not you. Then Ben, into you for all of one day… just to lure in Elena. Luka, worse than most of them because he should have known better. He put a piece of pretty _stone_ in front of you… And now, Damon. Elena's flat out rejected him, Stefan's lost his compulsion, in theory it's your turn. It's your time to have a vampire obsessing over you, right? And if that vampire's Damon, the most eligible and ironically the least fertile bachelor in Mystic Falls, then you've won. Right? You beat Elena by default. You beat Caroline. You beat all the women he's killed and all the women he's yet to kill. And a win's a win, right?"

"It's not like that."

"Not like what? Not like you're professional at playing second fiddle? Not like Jeremy embarrasses you because he's a living, breathing white surrender flag. You don't have to pretend. Not here. Not now, at least."

Bonnie swallowed. Enough with the jabs, already. "Here's what," she got up and dusted off the flimsy, witch-dress thing she'd been wearing since they'd sat down to form the power circle days ago. It had started with Sophie needing to guide her niece out of a tough time involving with an intoxicated trip down the highway at 150 mph and somehow the guiding had gone on for days. They were currently _guiding_ the girl from slitting her wrist in the bathtub. "You guys can manage this without me, I'll go find Damon."

"And do what, swoon?"

"I'll send him back."

"Back?" Sheila's eyebrows arched. "Your vampire lover has come to kill us all and feast on our blood. He's not going _back_. Without _you_? _His little Bonnie?_ His little bird… He's invested too much of his charm into bamboozling you to leave empty-handed. And we can't get him to go either."

"We can resurrect him. Send him back to life."

"Not without him putting up a fight."

"Fight? Damon's… His bark is worse than his bite."

"Well, you'd know I guess. I couldn't say myself. I've never let one bite me."

"Grams?"

"Baby girl?"

"I'm not signing up to be his chew toy. The most we'll ever really be is friends. And I know how you feel about them. For the most part I agree with it. There's no one in Mystic Falls who's spent as much time as me hating Damon but–"

Thunder clashed, and she forgot what she was saying.

The storm clouds broke, big, heavy, wet, cold drops landing on her face. Just in time, just in case she had to cry again. The other witches startled out of their guiding trance, their faces blank and incomprehensive. Stares, glares, open confusion and panic broke out.

"Demon?" a little one, ten years young with violently red hair and peppery freckles asked at Bonnie's elbow. "Someone let a demon in?"

Sheila's mouth tightened.

"Jaxxon…" Alice mouthed… "But he's gone now. It's someone else… _Something_ else. Something worse."

The girl turned her face up to the sky, the grey clouds making her own grey eyes seem black. "Look at that," she pointed.

Bonnie followed her finger.

_It's just a bird…_

"It's not a bird," little Savitra bounced excitedly around Bonnie. "It's a… It's a new monster. He's says his name is Damon! Who's Damon, Bonnie? It's looking for you!"

_I know…_

Sophie grabbed the child's pointing hand and wrenched it down. "Don't call it. We need to get out of here. The Aventine is lost. The demons–"

They needed to run. They needed to get out. Bonnie felt the hunger in the air, felt the bloodlust… A large black feather came down in the torrent. Then another one. Then another one…

Eliza shrieked and took off.

Esme screamed.

"We have to cast it out!" Sophie shouted and before Bonnie knew it she was being pulled into a new circle. An old school circle made up of the old pros. Sophie, Claudette, Jessie, Gloria, Bree, Alice… "Focus, people." Her grams finished the circle, joining with Claudette and Sophie.

Bonnie squeezed the hands of the women at her sides. Could they do it?

The gloom coming down on them… Damon…

Could they fight it? That open, wild rage? She couldn't think. Her body was stiff with fear. The words to chant froze on her tongue. He'd come for her. In a very twisted, terrifying way, he'd come for her. That had to count for something. She'd could smell the bitter hint of iron on the air. Bloodshed… Bloodshed for _her_. Dizzying.

A force pushed her out of the circle, flung her off her feet and clear of the witches.

"Grams!"

"Run," the old woman shouted back. "Something wicked this way comes."

Inappropriately enough, a half smile started on Bonnie's face. A little flicker of excitement. _Who speaks like that? _"Something wicked this way comes…" she mouthed, "For _me_."

"Run!"

**AN: Inspiration for this taken from True Blood – that episode where Bill follows Sookie into Faerie land and just goes berserk because of the **_**Faeriness**_** of the place. High Damon, lol.**

**The adventure of Damon continues. Witch Side Part 2. All the chaos that is Damon Salvatore simmers. The catalyst of his mania just under his nose…**


	25. Devil at the gates

**AN: Witch Side Part 3. Don't let anything confuse you. The point of the chap is just to show a less smarmy version of the K-man.**

"Who let the vampire in?" Klaus muttered as he glanced through the window at the impending storm assailing the Aventine. Warm and snug in the Capitoline, he swallowed bile flavoured saliva at the thought of Damon wreaking havoc. Some people you need to kill twice and three times before you get some peace of mind.

"You apparently," Dr Martin replied stiffly, handing him a robe.

"Not me," Klaus replied lightly, accepting the robe to cover himself. It was no fun at all being naked with Greta's father, only uncomfortable. "Actually, I rode coattails this time. It was Bonnie. You know Bonnie Bennett – prodigy of the Bennett witch dynasty – tried to kill me a couple of times? You tried to help her kill me?"

"Sure did." The man sank into a chair, and stirred his cup of tea or milk or whatever it was he was drinking.

"Here's the thing though," Klaus took a seat opposite from the man and leant forward, "Remember Greta?"

"My only daughter? The one you kidnaped and brainwashed?"

"So you remember…" he smacked his lips, preparing himself to deal with the moral condescension he knew was coming. Judgmental didn't _begin_ to describe the man. That PhD he had was in horse riding. High horse riding. Funny how even dead, he'd not softened into something a little more amiable. "She and I have come to a little hiccup."

"Dead, you mean?"

"Not dead, or she'd be here with you sad lot. And she's not. How's your dead son? By the way."

"Still dead."

"Wasn't me that killed him. Accept my sympathies. Anyway…" he leant back in the chair. No wonder the Aventine witches were always so meddling – the reward was pretty decent. The Capitoline had houses, carpets, frosted windows and teacups… Only imagine what the Viminal could boast – golden palaces with milk in the canals, maybe. Geraldine, his would be slayer, doing the doggy paddle. "My point is… that it's brought my attention to some matters that I've overlooked. I… never liked you and the only reason I didn't kill you myself is that somehow, I grudgingly respect you. I respect all witches, they've been kind to me in all sorts of ways and I think it's time I return the favour. Give something back to the community, so to speak. How does immortality sound? I can give you that."

"Huh," the man sighed. "If this were coming from anyone beside you, it'd be good news, but you are an abomination, Klaus," the lean man uttered casually as he wiped his glasses in his sleeves, squinting a bit. "You are a blight on our existence. A disease of magic that we just can't seem to get rid of. You're only good at destruction. Greta's had it coming since she sided with you. People who consort with evil like you usually end up dying horribly… I listened to Elijah and look where that got me. Look where it got my son. Vampires," nd he spat over his side.

"Technically, I'm a hybrid."

"And technically, I don't give a fuck."

"Ooh. Language, love." Hard to keep a smile going when someone calls you a disease to your face, but Klaus managed.

"What do you want, Klaus? A spell? This is my afterlife, and I don't want to spend more than a minute of it with you."

"I want your cooperation, really. Think about your son. We shouldn't be enemies… We're practically family… pops. We should work together. You love witches, I love witches. Why are we on different sides in this?"

"I don't know what happened to Greta. Since you changed her into an abomination, it's harder for me to watch over her. Any decent father watches over his children and you robbed me of that. You robbed me of both my children, Klaus, and there won't be a day that I won't hate you for it."

"This isn't about Greta. Greta's my concern now, not yours. And she's not dead. I keep my people alive."

"Good for you."

"It can be good for you too. I've got a favour to ask." The chair was decidedly uncomfortable. Asking for favours in general was an uncomfortable thing to do. "I'm working on something… that might be big for you witches."

Martin leaned forward. "Are you now? Involving what exactly?"

"Involving human sacrifice, and setting up a revolving door between the real world and these planes of murky, second rate existence. As soon as you die, you skip all these planes of enlightenment, or atonement, or whatever it is you witches do over here, and return to life good as new."

"You lost me at human sacrifice."

"Trick is, I need someone on this side to work with me and I've settled on you. It's either you or Gloria and I'm giving you first dibs. Even if you don't trust me, that shouldn't matter, because it's not my spell. _Witches _came up with this. Your ancestors – the Bennetts, the Martins, the Underwoods, the Hales and the Calicorns. _Your _people. All I need is the Bennett girl to cooperate and the pentagram is complete. Greta and the rest of my people are working out the details. Wouldn't you like to see it to completion?"

The man's face twisted into something not even Klaus could recognise. A haunting silence filled the room.

Finally Martin spoke. "_That_ spell?"

"_That_ spell indeed." That ancient piece of magic so long forbidden it made his Sun and Moon curse look like child's play. _The Godmaker, _he liked to call it. Necromancy and magic at its very best.

It had first come to his attention at the turn of the thirteenth century when he'd met Anastasia. The original Anastasia. She'd been something all right, a real cauldron of power. He'd met her at a river, giving birth to a child at midnight. Morbidly enough, five minutes after the thing was out of her, she'd snapped it's neck. And that's how he'd started to learn about human sacrifice and gates to the other world. Evil, sick, and borderline satanic, maybe, but very practical he'd come to realise later on.

There's nothing in the world more precious than human life. Ergo, you live like a god once you start trading in it.

"No sane witch would ever agree to do that."

Thank the Fates that he'd managed to put his hands on some mentally unstable ones then. He'd run in to some difficulties with his hybrid army plan, sure enough. But when a door closes, somewhere, an interdimensional gate opens. No hybrids, no problems. He'd turn his people into gods. Limitless. Boundless. No more death. No more _other_ sides.

"And who's going to act as the energy source for something like that?"

"Yours truly." Oh, he more than had that covered. And besides, Magwyr's little show of power would keep his living room active for the rest of the year, no doubt. Sure, having a gaping hellmouth in your eating area could be inconvenient, but he'd work around it. There was also his demonic little friend, Jack, who'd _love _to help out.

"You're never content are you?" the man snorted. "You're like a child who can't keep a goldfish alive asking for a shark tank."

_I already own a shark tank. In my Australian bungalow. What are you implying? _"When a man lives forever, he needs hobbies."

"Like becoming the sovereign lord and ruler of both the living and supernatural planes of existence and turning you minions into mini gods to wreak havoc on mankind?"

_You make that sound like a bad thing. _"There's a space on my minion roster for _you. _I'll make you unkillable. You want power? Real power? It's at your fingertips, warlock. The power of these realms. The power of human blood. The moon. Magic like you've only dreamed. It's time to break some walls down."

"Huh," Dr Martin shuffled in his seat, "I'll think about it."

Well, you win some, you lose some. Next up on his list, Edith. A less powerful, but less scrupulous old Underwood granny. "Don't call you, you'll call me?"

"Something like that. Expect Gloria to turn you down as well."

"Well either way, I'm sure there's another dead witch around here who'd be more willing to oblige."

The man sighed listlessly and his body sagged. "One thing there's no shortage on is dead witches."

_So, that hadn't gone as well as it could have. _Most the witches had been in a state of panic, scampering for cover. He'd met up with Edith on the sixth plane and had all of five minutes to try to hem her in. She hadn't been too resistant to the idea of breaking every single law of nature in order to get her youth and life back and free passage back to the living realm… except they hadn't gotten time to hammer out the details…

He stumbled out of the haze and candle smoke of the other side and set his feet down in the familiar surroundings of his recently invaded home in Halifax, Canada. He threw himself into an armchair fatigued. Anastasia was there at the foot of the couch gazing out a window at a butterfly on the sill oblivious to his return. One Underwood, check.

Maddox was hovering over him, the scent of burning candle wax ridiculously strong, with a faint hint of mint.

_And so, the prodigal Calicorn witch returns… when the dust has settled. Thanks for pulling me out the hellhole, pal, but I'd been in the middle of a conversation… _

The first glaringly odd thing he noted was that Lucy was still around. Good. _Another witch joins the nest_. Hale, check.

Just a Bennett to get, and his evil five-man army of witches is complete.

His eyes darted to the calendar on the wall.

Three weeks.

Wow.

His head was spinning. He pulled out the mini notebook from him back pocket and started scribbling down every detail he could remember of what Edith had instructed back to him before the amnesia set in. A little forgetfulness was nothing too bad most times, but when trying to circumvent nature and rule the world, you need to be sharp.

Lucy cleared her throat, "Nice to meet you face to face."

He spared her a smile even though he wasn't particularly in the mood. Lucy Hale. He'd need her. "Same here, love. Decided to stay, did you?"

She shrugged. "Your guy here gives a hell of a sales pitch. He says you're recruiting."

"Uh huh," he squinted down at the page wondering if he got all the words right. Had he forgotten something? He felt sure he had. Something that might be important?

_Fucking amnesia spell._

How pissed off was he supposed to be at Maddox? Sure the guy had left him high and dry, but had he been in any real danger? No. And it had all worked out in the end, hadn't it? Damon was dead. Elijah… soon to be daggered. He hadn't had to kill the Bonnie girl thanks to Jaxxon and he'd got a free ride to the other side as well.

_Oooh, I feel sleepy…_

_Fucking witches. _

Could it not be enough that they were on a separate plane of existence? They had to add an amnesia spell too? What next, blindfolds? He grunted.

_Fuck. _

He'd have to cross over _again, _and re-find Edith. Just to double check it. He looked up from his scribbles, studying the woman whose body he'd recently been in… in a spiritual way.

_Can I?_

_Will it be weird?_

_Yeah… _

He could go right on and scratch her off the list of potential people to sleep with. He was a little _too_ familiar with that body for comfort. "You looking for employment, love? Have a resume? What's you're _thing_? Annie does _negative_ magic, Maddox is the _go_ _to_ guy when I need to do something _extra_ forbidden. What do _you _bring to the table?"

"Well," she settled into the chair, rather comfortable with herself. She must not have heard about him. Sure he doesn't kill witches, and sure, he might need her for a certain arcane spell, but that doesn't mean he has to let her squat in his house. She gesticulated at the candles littered all over the place. "For starters, seeing as you obviously have an interest in crossing over to the other side, I can help you out with that."

The way she said it…

As if he were crossing over to go bugger livestock.

"For starters, this isn't any of your business."

"For starters, as I'm a witch, and as you're crossing into _my _domain, I'd say it isn't any of _your _business_."_

The woman reminded him of his mother. So much for not killing witches, this one would wear his nerves to ash if he let her.

_Whatever. _Three weeks was indeed a long time to spend in between worlds. Last time it had taken him a month and a half; Maddox was improving but if the woman could promise something more efficient… "You can get me across and back in less than a fortnight?"

"Depends."

"On?" Her time of the month? The tide? Tea leaves? An ancient prophecy? What?

"On what exactly it is you're trying to accomplish."

He sighed. The air left him all on its own. "What I'm trying to accomplish…" Anastasia rapped her fingers on the window, still fascinated by the butterfly.

How much to divulge?

Everything?

Nothing?

Kill her?

Kill them all?

Suffice it to say, he was feeling a touch… disoriented.

"I'm going to go out and find a werewolf lady who has mismatched eyes and is exactly thirty nine weeks pregnant. Then I'm going to go convert her to a hybrid. Then I wait for her to give birth and when that finally happens, I feed the hybrid monster baby the heart of the doppelganger. Then _without_ cutting the umbilical cord, I slit the mother's throat. Then I burn the body and make the child eat the ashes. Then I drain the baby's blood out of the umbilical cord which at this point acts as an Elixer of Rebirth and Rejuvenation. Just a drop and you get inherit the mother's hybrid legacy and _'gain dominion over the Otherwrold'._" He consulted the notes he'd made. "That's it… more or less."

"Gruesome," she said after a minute, her eyes trailing away to the circle of rotting intestine on the floor.

Maddox coughed. "I thought I'd leave it down to mark off the area. So people know where not to step."

Right.

"Not that," Lucy looked away. "I was referring to draining… the…"

"No, I don't kill the baby. I just set up an IV..." Klaus craned his neck around, taking in the place that used to be home. At first it was familiar, but now… the walls were swirling together.

He hadn't eaten anybody on the other side. Hadn't taken so much as a nibble.

So why the deliria?

"Where's Bonnie again?" his voice hitched. She'd pushed him, and he'd come pretty close to killing her, but in truth, another Bennett would be a bit difficult to come by.

"Mystic Falls," Maddox answered.

"Good riddance." _He'd pick her up when the time was right. _"You give some people a chance and… they… they rip you a new asshole." It certainly _felt_ as if they'd ripped him a new asshole. Speaking _very_ literally. "And Damon? I want to tap dance on his brain."

"His body, you mean?" Maddox asked, still making smoke circles with the candle, looking every bit the classical voodoo man. All he needed was a bone necklace and one white eye.

"Yeah, the body."

"I burnt it," Anastasia spoke up with a smile, "Then I put the ashes in a jar, and mailed the jar back to Mystic Falls."

A touch sociopathic, but creative. An 'Accept My Condolences Gift Basket' with an assorted arrangement of his internal organs with his infernal blue eyes mounted on toothpicks would have been _more_ perfect, but say what? A FedEx delivery of his brother's body in a jar would do. Poor Stefan.

"You saw my sister?"

_Your whole fucking family tree. _"She says hi."

Anastasia pushed open a window letting in an unwanted, unappreciated breeze. "Marie? You actually saw her?"

"Yes."

"How is she?"

_Didn't ask. I was preoccupied with hunting down your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother Edith. She's still dead… _"Oh, she's fine." _Or even more dead… Damon's got loose on the Aventine and he's working through the witches like a biblical Egyptian plague. _His back hurt, almost as if someone had broken it. Muscle spasmed, nerves tingles and radiated pain through every inch of his body…

He should really start taking better care of it; he only had the one, after all. He needed cushions, and someone to hold him and smooth his hair out…

Why do I do this, Klaus wondered. There was no particular reason _why_ he let Damon and Bonnie get away with it… except that he'd needed Bonnie alive to bridge the gates between the Other Side and the real world. Anastasia had suggested it and he'd said, why not? Why not let them hack his body to pieces and rip his guts out? He glanced at her bubbly face and felt a little sick to his stomach.

Did he need them?

Any of them?

Maybe Damon had the right of it. What if a witch's purpose didn't extend beyond being his evening meal? A witch-a-day diet could do wonders for a guy like him. Why should he repeatedly subject himself to torture for the sake of one hare-brained scheme after another? Did it matter who lived or who died? _He _wasnever goingtodie_. Ever. _Wasn't that enough? Show of hands on who'd want to live forever with a pack of parasitic, judgmental balancers of nature in tow. Fuck balance. Fuck nature. Fuck–

"You told them that we're going to resurrect them all?"

"I'd thought we'd surprise them." It'd surprise _him_.

At the point he was in his life, he couldn't even get excited about it. Somehow, _some_ way, somebody'd was going to throw a monkey wrench in his plans.

_Don't put too many eggs in my basket, because it's very likely they'd break. I bring nothing but destruction, haven't you heard? I'm an ulceration on the heel of the world. _

And besides, if it actually worked, he not actually resurrect _all _of them.

Anastasia was beaming, as long as we have the five–"

"Where's Greta?"

They gathered around the body like a pack of mourners at a funeral. At least there was a body, which was more than there'd been three weeks ago.

_See, h_e wanted to tell her. Being a witch vampire werewolf hybrid has benefits. It's not all bad.

Maddox spoke first. "We're still working on it."

"Working on what?" His eyes focused on her dead mouth. His fingers twitched in his pocket. "What is this?" he gruffed. Truth be told he was just the littlest bit angry. He wasn't in the mood for complicated. Maybe three weeks ago when he'd let them rip his guts out through his mouth, but not now. He was sore, tired, hungry and pissed off. After all the blood he'd pumped into them he shouldn't even be having this conversation. Death should be something vague and unfamiliar to him, like diarrhoea or athlete's foot.

"The first thing is that Bonnie killed her," Maddox started in his voice that he reserved for his more esoteric conversations. "Turned to dust. They just disintegrated her body…"

"Obviously it wasn't permanent?"

_And if she'd been turned to dust, who put her in the sundress? _Of course, it wouldn't be right to just leave her there naked… But who put her in the dress? Greta wasn't the type of girl to be caught dead in a sundress.

Huh.

Maddox mouth twitched.

_Maddox my favourite…_ Always the man with the plan. The guy who put a whole new meaning to _white_ magic. His diabolical brother in arms. More occult than any horseman of the apocalypse could ever dream to be.

Maddox – a man so lacking in morals he'd steal candy from a baby just to hear the baby cry. Then he'd kill the baby, just because it was crying.

Oh sweet Maddox… my right hand bandwagon-rider. _Let's switch bodies. You raise the army and I'll just do whatever it is you do…_

"Basically, the body healed on its own. It reformed if you will..."

"Except…" Klaus prodded.

"Except there's a fundamental flaw in us witch hybrids. When you get _your_ heart ripped out, it regrows. Your natural Power will keep your body intact for all time."

"And?" The suspense was killing him. Not literally, but…

"_Our_ hearts don't grow back. Our hearts are the only part of us that remain completely witch, while the rest of us gets converted. To bring Greta back we're going to have to get a new heart for her–"

_And I look like the fucking wizard of Oz? _"Don't we have one in the refrigerator?"

"That one was from a normal human. We'll need one from a witch."

"They aren't so hard to come by–"

"From a witch in her bloodline."

"Shit."

"Oh, no…" Maddox braked, "That isn't the problem. I dug up the brother's and I'm going to use his. The problem is that… since it's a dead heart it'll suck up all her magic in about… nine years."

His face twisted, and he could've almost tasted what Maddox was about to say. He could put a patent out on the flavour – _Disappointment__._

"And the spell is a little tricky." He gestured at the body, "Mostly, I'm operating on guesswork. If it all goes perfectly, giving her the brother's heart should bring her back." Maddox continued. "I'm not exactly sure what happens when her magic runs out."

"She's a hybrid. We pump her full of Elena's blood and everything is right as rain."

"It's more complicated than that," Anastasia contributed.

_I need her… _"We need her, because last I checked there aren't any more Martin witches. You need to bring her back exactly the way she was before." He kicked the leg of the bed. "I don't have time for this sleeping beauty nonsense."

"We can't–"

"What _can_ you do, girl?" His brain twirled. He was not going back to this… "A witch who can't do what needs to be done is worse than having no witch at all." Unfair maybe to launch at the child, but he'd had enough. "I don't want excuses! I've had it up to my eyeballs in excuses. When I give an order I just want it done! Is it so hard?" he rounded on Maddox. "Is it so hard what I ask of you? I don't want you to bring me the moon. _Keep each other alive._ That's all I want. And you _persist_ in dying, despite everything I do! I feed you my own flesh and blood and all I ask is that you keep each other _alive_! How fucking hard is it to stay alive?"

Maddox flinched.

Anastasia was in tears. "Why are _you_ angry? We're trying to–"

Oh God.

The monkey wrench.

And he'd barely even begun.

"Don't bother…" he sighed in defeat, his eyes shifting to where the sheet had raised off her toes. "Don't bother!" He knocked over one of the candles they had lit. Watched it roll across the flow and out itself. Bad sign, that.

"Don't bother?" Anastasia grabbed at the tumbling candle. "We can fix this!"

"To what end? To what purpose? She'd been perfect before – witch and hybrid all rolled up nice and neat. I don't want some…" he pointed to the deathly still corpse in the sundress, "some Pet Cemetery Version of her running around freaking everybody out."

"No, but–"

_Back to the drawing board. _

"Let's say all your little spells don't go according to plan, because, and let's face it, you witches tend to fuck things up more than you fix when you meddle. Can you reassure me that you can bring her back with her magic _intact_? You bring her back without the magic and she's just some freak with a bad nosebleed, Annie. Even if you do it perfectly, if it only last nine years, what's the point?"

"You could give her Elena's blood," the girl suggested again, sniffing furiously.

"I _hate_ the Elena-hybrids. They're weak, and the _worst_ of both worlds. _Doubly_ vulnerable. Don't bother. Just–"

"Don't bother?" she screeled, her face turning plum red. "We're not bringing back a zombie! It's not like if she's going to keel over and die the very second she comes back! Nine _years _is plenty!"

"Not to me! Nine years, nine minutes, what's the _point_?" he shouted back, intentionally putting out a good bit more candles. "I'm not giving her the Elena-blood to turn her into a drone, so–"

"There not drones!"

"They fucking are what I say they are, sired pieces of werewolf shit! I've had it with werewolves. I've had it with witches and I've had it with trying to raise this half-assed _army_!" He turned out the room back into the main living area. He knocked over the rack of wine glasses. The notebook he'd left on the chair, he took and started ripping pages. "I'm done!" He threw the book at one of the windows and got a twisted glimmer of joy at the sound of his bullet proof glass shattering. "I'm done with all the plans–" he flickered to the piano and sent it hurtling through the air out another window. With any luck it'll land on somebody. "I'm done with everything!"

Maddox jumped in. "Even–"

"Yes! Everything! What have I accomplished this entire year? How is my life any better for the lot of you? You!" he jabbed an accusing finger into Maddox' chest "You were all about self-preservation when Magwyr was ripping me piece from piece. Anastasia's ten years old and good for absolutely nothing. And Greta? Hmm? She's the worst of all of you. Leave the bitch alone for five minutes and she ups and dies on you, leaving Greta Dust to clog up my air vents. I try to make gods out of you people and you just spit in my face."

"I'm bringing her back!" the girl squawked. Just the same way chickens squawk when they feel fingers on their necks.

"Knock yourself out. You're a witch. She's a witch, or used to be one. Got nothing to do with me. You'll keep her downstairs with you, though. Top floor's off limits. Immortals only." To be extra spiteful he caught the butterfly she'd been so mesmerized with and ground it to dust in his fingers.

"I'm bringing her back!" She hefted one of the ornamental rocks to throw at him.

He growled. "I am _not_ five years old, Anastasia. I'm not even five hundred and I'm in a _bad_ fucking mood, so you _best_ thread carefully."

"Next time I let them kill you!" she screamed, half crying, storming for the door. _Ugly_ crying. Snot and everything.

"Next time I leave you in the streets!" he shouted back at her as she stomped away from him. "You'd make a good prostitute for the freaks out there."

_God… _he slumped onto one of the kitchen stools the echo of the slammed door finally started to fade. His head hurt. His throat was sore and he was beyond hungry. Flies were buzzing around his scattered intestines. He had eyeball juice and rank shark blood to shampoo out the carpet. Walls to scrub. He flung another glass at the wall, feeling just a little better to see the splinters fly.

Because of course, if he didn't clean it no one else would. Three weeks and his intestines were still on display on the carpet. They couldn't keep themselves alive… They couldn't keep the apartment clean… They _never_ remembered birthdays… Not the kind of people you want to rule the world with.

"You know something's wrong when you get into a hissy fit competition with a sixteen year old and win." Maddox slid a sloshing glass of _Royale _down the counter.

"Oh, I won?" News to him.

The two of them toasted the shot and swallowed. Maddox hissed.

"What the fuck did you add to this?"

"Arsenic and cyanide." There was a warm tingle in his lips and tongue. "Adds to the sting, you don't find?"

"I think I just got throat cancer. Stop spiking the alcohol."

Klaus clapped the guy on the back.

Maddox refilled the shot glasses. "You know how I love me a good pity party."

_I will not be comforted by a twenty-something year old. _

_I'm raging. Leave me alone._

_Can't you see how pissed I am?_

"I want to assume that we're still moving forward with Operation Hellgate."

"We have a name for it now?"

Maddox shrugged. "Seeing as we have an actual circle of gut in the living room, I thought Hellgate was apt."

"It is. It's still on a green light."

"Cool. Was your mother there?"

_This conversation keeps getting better and better… _"Yeah, and she promised to do everything in her power to bring about my destruction. Same old, same old."

"Moms."

"I wish Damon was here," Klaus groaned, letting his head drop to the counter with a _thunk. _He was feeling to kill something again. "So what, I apologise to the girl now?"

"And you have to have that talk with Lucy… _You_ _know, _the conversion talk."

"Chirst…" he re-_thunked_ his head on the counter. "Where are they? Downstairs?"


	26. How 'bout we head for the iceburg?

**Let's head for the iceberg. **

**An. More Klaus. Some days later.**

The English language was a funny, funny thing. It was horribly, horribly complicated on one hand with ancient rules against ending sentences with prepositions, and absurdly simple on the other with neat made-up words – 'bitch-slap' – for instance. It wasn't too good for poetry and arty literature. It wasn't the best for music – he'd dare someone to enjoy an _English_ Opera… It was thoroughly inadequate when it came to prayers, lamentations, curses and occult prophecies, but it was very, very good at summing things up. Example – '_sad'. _A simple three letter word. Basic, pedestrian, unpretentious and exquisitely, superbly descriptive.

'_Sad'._

' _I am sad.' _He could sum it all up just like that.

_I feel like Rose after Jack dies. _

_Or like a war orphan. _

_Or like a bird with two broken wings. _

_Or sad. _Just say sad.

The moon was too bright for sadness, though. It was big and full and perfect and shining down on him alone. _La Luna, _she'd showed up for their date right on time, lovely as ever, and he was asking for a rain check.He didn't _feel_ like it, painting the town red. Burgundy perhaps, or a moss green, but not red. He didn't _feel_ like letting the animal out. In fact, the animal didn't _want_ to come out. It wanted to huddle up in the back of a cave somewhere and cry itself to sleep. Not cry… The animal never cried. _Whimper_, perhaps. It was easy to keep that idiotic leering grin on his face, easy to pretend to be heartless, icy and dead. But he was flesh, still... His tear ducts had gone defunct sometime over the last millennia due to disuse, but he could cry on the inside still, maybe.

_Sad_. Was it just sadness, or something worse? Something like fear? It had been so long since he'd been afraid of anything, he couldn't recognise the feeling. Back then when he was young and human, with his head reaching up to his mother's waist, he fancied that he'd been afraid of things. He'd been afraid of fireflies because he thought they'd be hot for some reason and burn him. He'd been afraid of moths, garden lizards, and rats. He'd been afraid of the geese in the backyard and the one-eared dog… Centuries later, he had his doubts.

Maybe that time when old One Ear had bit him hadn't been so bad. The whole family had laughed about it around the campfire and the actual bite hadn't hurt too much.

Fear might be something worse than a scream, a bit of panic and a good laugh later. Fear might be more subtle.

A soft breeze was blowing, working cool icicles through his scalp, and massaging his limbs ever so gently. Normally, he was a big fan of autumn. He was all for orange leaves falling from on high and nippy afternoon strolls on slippery roads but this time, as the lazy heat of summer began to give way to the winter chill, Klaus imagined the coldness had found a way to breach his skin and flesh and crawl into heart. Something inside him was dying, painfully and agonisingly. Something momentous was shifting in him, rolling around like ascites loose in his belly. Some organ on the inside was going gangrene. Something vital was crumbling to dust and for all his alleged immortality, he might not survive it.

_I am not okay._

_Understatement. _

Nine years?

What could he do with that?

Nine?

Only nine? 

The breeze in his hair was replaced by fingers so slowly and imperceptibly that he startled when she laughed. A welcomed sound, disturbing the mournful peace. Welcomed, and yet unwelcomed at the same time. He wished she hadn't come out to him. He wished he'd never met her. He wished she'd never been born. He wished her parents had never been born. He wished witches didn't exist. "Hey…" _Wasn't that pathetic? Hey? _

"I figured you'd be running buck through the woods by now," she said behind him and pressed her lips into his hair. Her arms came around his neck in a weak, brief hug. She smelt like blood and… Blood and that something he'd never been able to name. _Magic_? _Can I smell magic? What about death?_

"I'm going," he sighed and stretched. "Just waiting on you."

"Me?" She swung around from the back of the chair and dropped herself on the armrest. "Tonight's the season finale of Doctor Who, and besides, howling at the moon's not my style."

"Not your style…" he echoed. She was wearing something hideous again. Jeans and some kind of top - not a dress, not a shirt, some_ thing_ plain and white and swallowing. Honestly, the only good thing about her clothes was that he got to take them off. Someday, he'd light up a bonfire and burn every scrap. Keep her naked forever. Or for the next nine years… He frowned.

"Uhhh!" she groaned and threw back her head. "What's wrong with you? Stop it!"

"Stop what?"

"Moping! It's like you dropped your lollipop and can't afford a new one."

"Dropped my scoop of ice cream, you mean. No one drops lollipops."

"Whatever. Point is, you're moping."

"I'm _not_ moping," he lied. He was doing exactly that. He'd pulled the recliner all the way out all the way to the balcony _just_ to mope. To mope and feel sorry for himself. To feel angry and bitter and hateful, and she was ruining the mood. "I'm just…"

"Moping," she finished. "About what?"

_Guess. _"I feel like the last dodo bird." Bad analogy, that. There was absolutely nothing similar between dodo birds and vampire-werewolf hybrids. He'd never become extinct. The world would turn to dust, and the sun would implode on itself before his end. He'd see mountains crumble and cities turn into rainforests. A dodo bird would never be able to relate.

"You're the _first_ dodo."

"First, only and last. Synonyms."

"And the big bad wolf is starting to feel lonely?" she smirked. Mockingly. Perfectly. "It's not as if you bend over backwards to ingratiate yourself with real people. If you want friends, you have to learn to play nice when you go to the sandbox. Stop beating people up."

Maybe it was the wolf in him, but he got off on being brutish and violent. The honest damned truth. He _liked_ being the major domo of the world. He _liked_ being a living breathing mass of malevolence. He _liked_ being untouchable.

Except… sometimes he didn't quite mind being touched...

"But I like beating people up," he said and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking it like any old playground bully would. "It's what I do."

She shrugged.

He shrugged. "That, and I love you."

She laughed, again, and while the sound made him think about doves and angels, harps and wind chimes, it wasn't quite the reaction he'd been going for. _Huh_. He snaked an arm around her waist and dragged her down from the armrest into his lap. "_I love you. _Now, say it back._"_

"Or else?"

He put his fingers around her throat, half in joke. "Or else, I kill you right here and now with my own hands and be done with it. Maybe this time you'd stay dead and I'd hit the market tomorrow for a rebound girl. Bonnie, probably."

"That's the very best you can do?" she huffed. "The very fact that you'd need a 'rebound' girl after me makes you seem a little… needy."

_Was that derision? _Had he fallen so low as to have his minions poke fun at him? The girl was a _minion_, why the attitude? "I've never denied the fact that I need you," a little defensively, "I'm only adding something new to our dynamic. I love you."

"You don't. You're _accustomed_ to me."

"Is there a difference?"

She frowned exaggeratedly. "It's sad that you don't know."

_Lots of things are sad. _"Teach me then."

"It's closer to that bromance thing you have going on with Maddox and Stefan–"

"Come on, I'm a healthy, male vampire-werewolf hybrid. I have a right to at least three homoerotic friendships in my lifetime."

"Who's number three?"

"I don't know… The school-teacher, probably. I like his hair. I find myself wanting to buy clothes for him, or a new car. Leave money on his doorstep or something. I feel sorry for him; being a history teacher in Mystic Falls has got to bite ass, but he keeps hanging around willing to go toe to toe with the meanies… That's loyalty for you. And we killed his girlfriend last year, remember?"

"Loyalty?" she scoffed, "I got drugged, my neck broken, drained down to my bone marrow, blasted to smithereens literally, reassembled, and as a bonus, I get to die one more time in nine years when my magic runs out. I'm _so_ lucky I get to put it on my calendar – by the way, the countdown stands at eight years ten months two weeks. Nine years and _poof, _I either turn into a lobotomized version of myself, a flesh eating zombie," she counted it off on her fingers, "or I go back to being dust in the wind clogging up your air vents."

_Oh, she heard that. _"I don't do pity parties, sweetheart. In the very beginning I warned you. With Maddox gone, _somebody_ had to die for me."

"I've never not been willing to die for you."

He managed to smile at that. "You sound fanatical."

"I _am_. That's why I'm _here_. I'm the moth to your flame, all the other metaphorical, ephemeral creatures implied."

His eyebrows furrowed as he watched the traffic snake its way slowly along. "It's dangerous work then, being a metaphorical, ephemeral creature. You moths should evolve."

"Why? Some fires wouldn't know what to do with themselves with a good moth… "

"So, what's your grouse?"

"We moths have been getting together–"

Klaus nodded fervently. "Good! You've a union, I suppose?"

"Working title: the KFSA – Klaus' Female Sidekicks Association. It's still in the teething stages, but yes… and we've decided that we moths deserve a little _more_ in way of reparation. For instance, in light of my unflagging devotion and recent _hardships_… where's _my_ new car? Where's _my_ reward?"

"Tell me you love me, and I give myself to you. And a car. How's that for a reward?"

"You know I love you. I could only be here if I loved you."

"Do you?" he squirmed on the chair, the uncomfortableness of the conversation rubbing him entirely the wrong way. The _L_ word… That forbidden word. "You had to think about it for too long., rambling about moths… Five things you love about me. Spot quiz."

"I'm never good at quizzes." She kissed his hair again, ran her fingers through just the way she knew he liked.

"Give it a go."

"I love… that you buy Kelloggs' Cereal Smart Start despite the fact that none of us qualify as human anymore. I love that you trust me with important things, like guarding your body. That pony you bought for Annie's birthday was nice, and you made me wish you were my father."

"Father? One of those fathers who believe in spanking?"

"Ew. Didn't mean it like that. I meant it more in the way that I love how fatherly you can be at times. And that's three… You've never killed anyone related to me – four – and when you look at me, you make me forget that other people exist. You make me forget that _I _exist. It's easier to live and die for you, than it was before – just breathing for the sake of being alive. Five."

He should write that last part down. People only say things like that in romance movies, never in real life and absolutely never to him. When you compel people they lose that sense of creativity. It's less sincere, by far. "I was expecting something more on the lines of my hair, or my strong masculine jaw, but I suppose that'll do. A bit mushy…" he shrugged.

"Five things about me, then," she cooed, almost bouncing. "Five reasons why you love me."

He grinned, trailing a finger up and down a collar bone. So breakable. Every now and then, he'd get this urge to just _break_ her. Grind her down to dust and remould her with his own fingers and his own flesh and his own blood. "Mostly, your vagina. Especially how you get so puffy and sore the day after I fuck you. How wet you get when I touch you. how you taste. Really, you've a top notch cunt." The cumulative amount of hours he spent inside her was bound to leave him biased. "Your _fantastic_ ass, I love that too. Your fingers, your collarbones and that disgustingly amazing mouth of yours, tongue and teeth included. There."

She shook her head. "Five nonsexual reasons."

"Five? Non-sexual? I can't put my finger on _one_…" Laugh, laugh.

The first time he'd seen her in the occult corner of a library, he'd tried to compel her to go away with him. When that had failed, he'd tried to talk her into it – spoke up all the benefits and glory involved in being his sidekick, leaving out the part about her increased risk of suffering a bloody and/or violent death. She'd resisted up to the point where he'd had to resort to a handkerchief and a bottle of liquid ether… Kidnapping in the first fucking degree.

Not his smoothest recruitment ever, but allowances had had to be made. He'd been desperate. It wasn't all that often he'd be able to get his hands on a witch, a moonstone, a doppelgänger and sacrifices. Granted, Maddox had already been on the payroll at that point, so he'd had no right to be _that _desperate. But he'd seen her, glimpsed her with her friends and thought – _why not?_ _Why not take her away from everything she knows and loves and make her love me instead? _After a millennium or two walking the face of the earth, you stop needing reasons for most things. You stop analysing motivations.

'Why not?'

So young. So malleable. He could have shaped her into anything, she been veritably putty in his hands. Any and all resistance had been futile. He was Klaus. Master Manipulator. Blind devotion – easy. Unquestionable allegiance – _please_. Near religious zeal – check. Fanaticism – check. And the last tick-box on the sheet? Love?

Why_ not?_

Utterly inadequate as a response to a girl sitting on your lap in the moonlight asking why you loved her, but sad fact was – reason number one: _why not. Why not?_

Reason number two – maybe he'd realised that he _needed_ to love somebody, something, _anything_. Use it or lose it, the saying went. Maybe if he'd gone another century without loving something, he'd have forgotten the sensation completely. Forgotten emotions and passions… Maybe she'd just been in the right place at the right time. Maybe he'd been bound to love any arbitrary roadside witch that had come along…

He kissed her some random place on her neck instead, and sent his hands up under all the cloth she was wearing and ripped it off of her. "Skip the logical reasoning and _conclude_ that I love you. I love… having somebody to record Letterman for me when I miss it. I love… that you take the time to watch me try clothes on at the mall." He kissed her again, as soft as he could manage. As gently as he could manage. "I love that you love me. I love that you don't aren't secretly infatuated with my brother… Suffice it to say that I really, really love you and I'd miss you like fucking hell if you died again and I'm very, very sorry about what I said while you were... recovering. Or being recovered…"

She bit his ear. It stung for a moment before her mouth was on it sucking. "Fine, then." She pressed herself into him, twisting her frame to press her breasts to him. Twisting to get her hands where she wanted in his hair, in his pants… Her wrist cracked loudly. "This is awkward," she mumbled.

"Not for me."

"Weird position. And the wrong kind of chair."

"...Yeah. It seemed more feasible in my mind. You're not as limber as I'd calculated," he tisked.

She smirked at the challenge, turned herself around in his lap, wriggling and writhing better than a paid Las Vegas performer could have. She brought her knees down on either side of him and settled herself down on his denim covered erection. "Kiss me," she whispered against his lips.

"_You_ do it. _You_ kiss _me_."

_Love me. Somebody. Anybody. You, in particular._

_Own me. _

_Pull me out of this abyss and twirl me around on your finger. _

Either her lips were on fire, or she was channelling electricity through his spine. Just the teeniest bit painful, and 99.9% perfect. He'd miss kisses like these…

_God,_ _Klaus. How'd you get yourself into this?_

_She's dead. She's dead. She's dead. _

_Just another carcass in the way. _

_Why cling to this one? _

That pesky, bothersome heart of hers, or her brother's more precisely, was beating. He used to like it before. He used to be fond of the moments when he'd set her heart racing with a glance or a touch. Feeling the pulse under her skin used to turn him on. Now, he hated it. It was a clock counting down the time he had. Someday it would stop, and he'd be left with jack squat. He was doomed. He was the Titanic and nine years into the future he was going to crash into the fucking iceberg. The big, fucking, magnetic iceberg that he'd seen coming since the dawn of time.

_Stop thinking about icebergs. _

_Concentrate, you sad fuck. _

_Memorise this!_

But he couldn't think clearly with his mouth on hers. He'd lost his focus and in that time she'd got his jersey off over his head somehow and he was already halfway out of his jeans. Her fingers were around his cock, working up and down, and just as for a flickering moment, her mouth. It was all he could do not to ram himself down her throat. He eased his head back with a hiss, letting her tease him. The stars were looking on, blushing. "God…"

She dragged her mouth back up to his. "Greta."

"Mm-hmm." His thumbs hitched into the band of her panties and slid them down. Everything in the world was right and perfect as long as he could warm his fingers on the fever of her skin. The pacing was off between them. She was moving too fast and all he wanted was for her to slow it down and stretch it out… His teeth bit in to the soft flesh of her arms and her breasts. Quick, sharp bites. Puncture and taste, puncture and taste. He shuddered, halfway because she was sending erotic little shockwaves through his body, and halfway because of the damn annoying mini anxiety attack he was having.

_Breath._

_Damn, but isn't she beautiful?_

He should have asked someone, just to confirm it. Just to confirm that his attraction to her wasn't as insane as it felt.

_You'd never think I've had thousands of women before…_

"Slow," he whispered, half croaked, as he tried to fit himself inside her. He used the fingers of one hand to spread her heat open and the other to hold her steady and guide her down. "Slow…" Her warmth welcomed him. Her body welcomed him. He rolled his hips ever so slightly and slid into her another inch. Her arms tightened around him and he was very, very faintly aware of claws on his back.

_Wrap yourself around me._

He'd read that in a poem somewhere, or heard it in a song, and thought it was utter nonsense at the time. Now, not so much. He took the weight of her, the near negligible weight of her, in his arms and on his chest, adjusting her hips and her ass to suit him. It was more the feel of her skin against his, than the sensation of his cock in her. More the spider-web of her hair in the wind. More that she was holding on to him as if there was no tomorrow. More like love-making, perhaps, than a fuck on the balcony.

_Nine years is plenty._ If he spent every day of the next nine years inside of her, then it would be as if time was standing still, almost. _Wouldn't it?_ If he didn't waste time with sleeping and hunting and the rest of the whole fucking world, he could get nine _decades_ worth of life with her, couldn't he?

He shifted a thigh, pulled himself up straighter in the chair, put a hand to the small of her back and pulled her down the rest of the way. _God…_ His teeth bit into her throat and he growled. "Mine," whatever that was supposed to mean. She'd always been his. Since… Since whenever. He was the one giving himself over, now. He nuzzled his way down her chest and fastened his lips around a hard nipple and sucked. A couple of strands tore from his scalp as her hands fisted in his hair. "Klaus…," barely a whisper.

His lips found hers again. So soft. Almost edible. He bit down on her bottom lip and passed his tongue over the trickle of blood. His hips buck and he hit her womb. _God…_ Her body shuddered in his hands, her walls squeezing his cock to death.

The moon was bringing out the very best of her, or the very worst. She moaned deep and threw her head back. Her face, serene and perfect. Her eyes, wet and flashing some unholy colour.

_Concentrate, you sad fuck. Remember this._

"Klaus…"

"I love you."

_Nine years will pass like nine minutes in the face of eternity. Don't try to fool yourself._

"Klaus…"

He held her, still and unmoving as she sobbed against him, the passion dying instantly and replaced by that same gnawing, burning throb in the left side of his chest. "I'll fix it," he whispered, running a hand through her hair. "Okay? I'm the rock of ages, so hold on to me. I'll fix it. Whatever I have to do. Whoever I have to kill. Wherever I have to go. I'll realign planets if I have to. I'll fix it. And we still have Operation Hellgate. Your dad's not going to do it, but I got in contact with Edith and she's a go. If you have nine years, all we have to do is pick up the pace. Female werewolves with mismatched eyes can't be _that_ rare." So what if he'd never seen one in a thousand years? What doesn't happen in a lifetime can happen in a day.

"I don't want to die."

"And you won't. Hey," he raised her head by the chin. "You're not dying. That's the one benefit of having a crazy, demonic, totally evil, ancient, bona fide hybrid boyfriend; I'm a pro at breaking the so-called 'laws of nature.'" Massive finger-quotes there. "Last time you died I had to kidnap Stefan to keep me company and he was boring as hell – 'no, I don't want to eat babies;' 'no, I don't want to eat the poodles;' 'I'm a vegetarian…'

She laughed a little.

"See? When next am I going to come across a woman willing to split a baby with me? I had a thousand years of training in being a heartless bastard. You? You've got natural talent. Remember the time when we ate those boy scouts? The part where you baited the troop leader and stabbed him through the eye with his marshmallow stick thing? That was priceless. You had _my_ blood crawling. Add that to the fact that you're really liberal with blowjobs? You're irreplaceable." Laugh, laugh. He wasn't good at crying women. Usually, he just killed them.

She scoffed, pulled away a bit. It was hard thinking about how young she really was. Devoted, and loyal, and perfect, but she really was young. Just at the beginning of life, when he'd plucked her out of her world and made her a mantelpiece in his.

"Come on, cheer up now, love. You're not pretty enough to cry. What do you want, I'm offering anything. Ask it."

"If I die, bury me with my family."

_As if I know where they're buried. _"Sure thing, but I was thinking more in terms of something upbeat… Blood bath?"

"We've gone dry."

"Those fuckers?"

"Yeah…"

"That was a full tank. Who drinks a _tank_ of blood? Sex-fest then? Three day sex-fest? You can't say no to that."

"Not really in the mood…"

_Really? What was that just two seconds ago?_ "We can do the electrocution thing… I know you like that. Come on," he bit at her ear lightly. "I've gone one whole month without you. Give me something."

She shrugged.

"I'll go down on you." _Final offer._

"Teeth?"

"Most definitely."

"Okay… But–"

"But what?"

"At some point in time… can we kill Damon? I want to resurrect him just to kill him again. It just _irks _me that this royal asswipe got the jump on me _twice_."

"I know, right? He's just so… supremely nauseating. But I've already killed him." He'd made something of a truce with the guy. "I got the rage out of my system. Even if somehow the witches manage to cast him out, I don't think he'll be a problem for us."

"How 'bout Elijah then?"

"Yeah… He's always fun to hunt down and kill."

"Good."

"See?"

"You, Lucy, Annie, Maddox, and that's four. Kidnap Bonnie, five. Five witches for the pentagram… Edith on the other side keeping the gates clear, and we have our spell up and running, right?"

"We still need the doppelgänger, though."

Klaus threw his head back, groaning. "Elena? For the love of Christ, why does every fucking thing in the world evolve around this girl?"

"Good thing you left her alive."

"I'm killing her this time around. I don't know what I'll do for the hybrids but this girl I dead once and for all. I'm going to put my back into it."

"What if we need her again?"

"Too bad, then. I'm killing her. Probably Bonnie too, after she does what we need her to. I cannot _stand_ that girl, she and Damon, always with the plotting and the scheming and the _incessant_ meddling."

"Bonnie's not too bad. If we can fully convert Lucy, we can get Bonnie on our side easy. Five witches strong, you'll rule the world."

"Fine. Keep Bonnie alive. She gets you killed for the third time, I'll laugh. Honestly."

"Admit you like the idea. You'll be unstoppable."

"Fine," he sighed reluctantly. "We'll start on that when we know for sure Bonnie's back in her body." He slapped her on the ass, "Now go. This is my meditation time and you're distracting me… Go do something. I'm dismissing you."

"You jackass," she made a grab for her underwear.

"Leave that, it's part of my meditation process."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. And a bag of blood would be nice. B-neg."

"No more B."

"O?"

"Done. Maddox."

"What's left?"

"The A neg."

"Jesus Christ." He got up. "I have to go catch my food now? Is that how far we've fallen?"

She shifted, naked shoulders making a heartless effort at a shrug that became more of a slump. Really nice collarbones… "If you're going out for food, bring somebody back for me."

"Mexican or Chinese?" Laugh, laugh.

"I don't know, Chinese? Middle-aged, female."

"Chinese it is, then. I'm going to go eat some random people in Mystic Falls and string their bodies up on Elena's lawn. See you in about an hour." 

**AN. People probably wondering why so much Klaus, but I just basically wanted to try my hand at some character development. I wanted to contrast Klaus' approach to love with Damon's. At a 1000+ years, I imagine you wouldn't really love a person for their personality. I tried to get it across that even though it's a mutual affection, he and Greta were really at way different places. **

**Honestly, back in season 2 when they introduced Luka n Pops who were hunting her down. I got invested in the drama of why exactly Klaus would kidnap a witch when they weren't all that had to come by. Then we actually see them when they do the body transfer thing with Alaric and I was like **_**aw, that's cute. **_

**Then the entire martin family died. A la mode. **

**So I should probably dedicate this to their memory. **

**I actually have no hope for TVD again. Klaroline is ghastly and doesn't make a whiff of sense and Bonnie is either going to get killed off or get tied down with another human even lamer than Jeremy – looking at Matt or even worse, that random kid her mom picked up, which would be like her step brother? Foster brother?**

**Elena is getting more and more retarded, Damon and Stefan are embarrassing themselves in a way that can't ever be forgiven… Thursday for me is basically Secret Circle, Office and Archer. What happened to Community, people? I'd trade one season of TVD for an episode of community.**


	27. Katamari Damon

**AN. Back to Damon on the other side. Imagine Damon on a spirit walk. **

He pulled the unicorn to a halt when he came up to the towering gate. Another thing intestines was good for beside resurrection circles – reins. He'd fashioned a braided, rather stylish if you asked him, set of reins from the small intestines of a witch he'd run into some days ago. It really made the difference, bad enough he didn't have a saddle, but no reins? What was he, a caveman?

"You are ethereally beautiful," he said in awe, looking up at the woman poised delicately at the top of the gate looking down at him. All behind her was a field of flowers stretching as far as he could see. "Are you a gargoyle?" He'd seen some weird shit recently – she could very easily be a gargoyle. Five minutes ago he'd seen a dog doing handstands on the back of a unicycle. A dog that had tasted just marvellous, by the way. Like eating a circus, or a pack of skittles… He was drinking the rainbow, literally. What was there to rule out a hot, half naked gargoyle-woman at the top of a gate?

"You too," she called down, plopping something that looked like a grape into her mouth.

"I know. Thanks…" He studied the gate and the woman. "You need to open this."

"Why?"

"I need to find Bonnie."

"Why?"

"I don't remember, exactly."

"What are you?"

"What are _you_?"

"I'm the Gardener."

"The guardian?"

"The Gardener," she repeated and jumped down from her lofty pose. She floated down as gently as a snowflake.

"As in, you do the gardening?" Now that she was on a level with him, he still couldn't tell what it was she was eating. It was a while since he'd had fruit. "What are you eating, plums?"

"Wishes," she answered.

"Wishes?" His gaze swept up her neck looking for a pulse and finding only one weak, paltry hum.

"Wishes from the garden."

She really was beautiful. Skin like alabaster, green eyes so larger he could see himself reflected in them. A flimsy piece of white chiffon did nothing to hide her body, her slimness, her soft little breasts and cherry red nipples. Her hair was like red metal alloyed with strawberry and gold, and his eyes drifted down to the thatch between her legs… "Can you open the gate? Please?"

"I can't."

"Do you know Bonnie? She'll vouch for me, open the gate."

"Bonnie?"

"She's just like you."

"Like me?"

"Ethereally beautiful. But she's lost and she needs me."

"Are you the vampire?"

_Eh? What the fuck?_ He still hadn't been able to retract his fangs. He was veritably _dripping_ blood. What was confusing them? Couldn't she _see_ the blood on him? Unicorn blood, eagle blood, acrobatic dog blood, sheep-man blood, centaur blood, midget blood, flying squirrel blood, six-legged raccoon blood… "No. Vampire? What's that?"

She eyed him over sceptically. "A vampire is a monster without a heart."

"I've got a heart." He put a hand to the left side of his chest. "Right here."

"But it doesn't work."

"Neither does yours. Are you a vampire?"

"No!" her limey green eyes widened in horror. "I'm a gardener."

"But what's a gardener? Maybe I'm supposed to be a gardener too."

"My heart doesn't work because I was born dead, here in the Garden" she said easily, "I've never been to the human world. I'm one of the neutrals."

"Neutrals?" Damon tried to look interested. The gate looked _ominous… _stretching up to high heaven as it was, and he wasn't completely sure he could jump it. He wasn't completely sure he wanted to. A small instinct was telling him – _get permission. _And he'd get it. Some, daft, bird-brained, crazy beautiful gatekeeper wasn't going to cut him off at the knees. "Are there are more like you?"

She pouted, clearly suspicious of him. "A neutral…" she started slowly "Is someone who's neither dead or alive. Someone who exists outside those confinements…"

"Like you?"

"Yes. And all the other stillbirth witches. We're trapped here in the Garden."

_Boo hoo. _"And who else?"

"Klaus."

"The hybrid? He's here?"

"No, but he's allowed to enter because he's neutral. He's alive and he's dead at the same time. You have to be perfectly balanced in order to enter. Not good, not evil. Not right or wrong. Not alive or dead. Balanced. "

"Sounds complicated…to be neutral."

"It's not… Do you know Klaus? He's very handsome."

_How_ _is that relevant? You stupid little… _His hand shot through the gate to grab at her neck and break it. _Ah_… His hand passed right through her. _You're Damon-proof._

She giggled. "That felt funny!" she blushed, her face glowing like sunset. "You tried to touch me!"

"I did."

She was still giggling. "You feel like lightning."

He'd heard that exactly twice. "Thank you."

"Lightning on fire."

_Okay…? _"And you fell like air. You're not real."

"I am!" she looked flustered. "It's because you're on the other side of the gate."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"Open the gate, then."

"Why?"

"So I can kiss you."

"What's that?"

… "What's what?"

"To kiss? A kiss? What is it?"

"A kiss is the same as a touch. Only I'd touch you with my lips."

"And it'd feel the same?"

"Like lightning on fire. Even better."

She turned her cheek and pressed it to the space inbetween the bars. "Kiss me then."

"A kiss doesn't work like that."

She pulled back. "How does it work then?"

"For a kiss to work, I've got to feel something too. I can't be kissing air while you get lightning on fire. It won't be fair, and kisses have to be fair."

She took a step back, frowning. "If I let you in… You'll run off to your Bonnie and you won't bother with me anymore."

"No!" his face became a mask of horror. "Bonnie's a shadow compared to you. She doesn't smile like you. She scowls. She's angry all the time, and she hates me."

"Witches are always angry."

"She set me on fire once."

The weird woman gasped. Then she laughed… "She can't set you on fire! You _are _fire! And lightning! You're the most powerful thing I've ever seen. "

_Thank you._

"And everything beautiful."

_Thank you. _"Open the gate."

"The witches won't like it if I do. They told me–"

_Look into my eyes. Don't resist. You want to make me happy. You want to do everything I want. You– _

The gate swung open.

Right.

He took a cautious step towards the threshold, expecting thunder, fire… something. Quickly he slid through the slim space, holding his breath, waiting for… divine punishment, hail and fire from the sky… something.

She giggled. Took his hand and started swinging it as if she was six years old. It was cold. Just like his. And hard, just like alabaster itself.

What kind of creature was she? Fashioned out of living marble. Sculpted so perfectly beautiful…

_Gargoyle_.

She kissed him. Just like that, she planted her lips on his. Chaste, cold, lifeless… When she pulled back, she stared into his eyes for a moment, eyes narrowed. "You taste like death."

_Flattering. _

"It the flavour of my chapstick." According to Saturday morning cartoons the only way to kill a gargoyle was to wait for them to turn to stone and then go wild with a sledgehammer. He fixed his face into a smile to mask his annoyance. _No_ _sledgehammer_…

He started walking, hoping she'd leave off and return to her post back up on the gate. He'd wanted to get pass the gate, not a chaperone to follow him along talking nonsense and kissing him whenever they felt like.

"Why does Bonnie hate you?"

One of his fangs cut his tongue by accident. Again. Not the most convenient thing in the world, inch and a half razor sharp fangs. Good for murder, bad for everything else. "Because…" Memories of that other life were hard. "I tried to kill her a couple of times. And I killed her grandmother. By accident."

"But now you love her? Why?"

Complicated. "I've spent my whole life wanting what I couldn't have. I'm done with that. I need to have something. I need to own something or I'll…"

"You'll what?" the snowflake girl spun around in a circle in front of him.

He side stepped around her. "I'll explode and kill everybody."

"Oh?" she frowned and made another circle around him. He wanted to grab her by the hair and rip her pale, pretty throat out. "Who says you can have Bonnie?"

"I say I can have her. I already have her. I just need to find her…" The Garden was curious enough now that he took the time to take it in. Half was a field of flowers, the other half a cemetery. He was walking down the cobblestone path that divided the two, dragging his fet in the gravel… At the end of the path, in the middle of it all, a giant tree.

A big, giant tree.

A big giant tree that seemed to call his name.

_Da-mon. Sal-va-tore._

Strange.

He'd experienced stranger, but a talking tree was definitely in his Top Five of Strange. "What is this place?"

The girl disappeared behind him. He felt her fingers on his shoulders… "The Garden," she answered.

"Whose garden?"

"Nature's. I have to keep it organized."

"Organized?"

"Yes. I keep the good people," she pointed to the flowery half, "separated from the bad people."

He needed to be out. To be free. To feed. "I can hear the Tree."

She laughed, her voice like a sprinkle of dew. "Everyone who belongs here can hear the Tree."

"I don't belong here."

"Of course you do." She pointed to the darker cemetery half to his left. "You're one of the bad people."

It's a strange thing looking at your own grave. The scent was overpowering and he had and a devastating urge to vomit. "How deep did you bury me?" Whatever the answer was, it wasn't deep enough. He could see worms churning the dirt at the surface. _Feel, _the maggots wriggling through the soles of his sneakers. He could hear the drone of flies… The headstone was moss laden and cracked. 'Here lies _Him.' _

"Forgot my name?"

"Your name doesn't matter." She was less happy now, and she stood a good bit away from him, arms folded over her chest, mouth pinched. Stonier. _Definitely, _a gargoyle.

"It matters to me."

"What matters to you doesn't matter."

"Says who?"

"Everyone that matters. Only good people matter."

"What did you bury in here? It stinks."

"This," she tapped the ground with her delicate, ballerina foot, "is your soul," and she spat at least a mouthful of phlegm down on his grave, "You piece of shit."

In sharp contrast, Bonnie had a nice little plot going. The soil was nice and fresh and in the centre of the square was a lily. A beautiful lily. A little frail, though… One of the petals had fallen. Another was on the verge of withering. There were five other petals holding strong though.

"No tombstone?"

"This isn't a grave." Snowflake answered. The girl was a snowflake with breasts, red hair and a scowl. "This is life. Bonnie's still in the light."

"Why are the petals dying?"

"She touched the darkness."

"Me?"

"Magwyr." Snowflake turned some loose dirt over with her toes. "Magwyr's going to drain all the life out of her."

"It'll work," he grunted as he packed in dirt around the base of the lily. "When something… When something dies and rots, you can use it as manure."

"You can't mix–"

"I know what I'm doing Snowflake."

"You're not a Gardener."

"I watch the channel all the time and I used to grow tomatoes, so fuck off."

By the time he finished hauling dirt from one end of the Garden to the other, his need to feed multiplied tenfold, so at the actual point in time when he was talking to the tree, he couldn't decide if he was hallucinating or not.

The tree spoke with a soft English accent. A Manchester sharpness to it… "You," the tree greeted him.

Damon shuffled, "Me."

"They really aren't picky about who they let in here…"

_We've covered that_.

"How'd you get the sheepman to let you pass?"

"Killed him."

"And the Weeping Sisters?"

"Killed them two. Gave them something to really weep about." And he couldn't help the grin that spread over his face. "Your gargoyle though, is perfectly inedible. Stronger than she looks." His jaw still hurt where she'd punched him. Strong, for a girl. And not a vein on her anywhere… "Go easy on her for opening up the gates for me. It's the natural effect I have on women."

"Nice, Damon. That's real classy. Now start talking about my mother."

The tree… was a lot like the sheepman. The first one he'd killed all the way back at the unicorn ranch. _Annoying. _

"What is it that you actually _do_ here?"

"Well…" the tree shook it's leaves in a pompous huff. "I grant wishes and requests made by the servants of nature. Even though you're not one, I'll do you a solid."

"You'll give me a wish?"

"I'm going to give you a wish."

"I need two, actually."

A branch lowered itself in front of him. It was laden with the same fruit he'd seen Snowflake eating at the gate. Small, purple… just like a plum…

"Take one," the tree ordered. "Make a wish and swallow."

_Make a wish and swallow. _Of all the possible scenarios he could think up to go with a line like that, a magic tree in the middle of a hill dangling its plums in front of his face was not included.

He grabbed two.

"I said one."

"And I took two. Look at that. I'm Damon Salvatore. _Him._ This shouldn't shock you."

"It really shouldn't," the tree pulled up its branch and gave a disappointed shudder. "You're a bad seed, Damon."

"Yeah, but who are you going to tell?" He put a plum in his mouth expecting to _taste the rainbow… _It tasted like regular plum, with salt and pepper and just a hint of blood.

I _wish that Magwyr completely and irrevocably dies in every possible realm that exists and that she never interferes with Bonnie ever again._

"Granted. Shocking, though," the Tree commented.

"What?"

"A selfless wish. I'd been expecting you to wish yourself back to life. I mean, a vampire makes all the effort to break into the Garden and _doesn't _wish to be alive again? That's crazy."

_No. Crazy is talking to a tree and wishing on plums._

"You_ do _knowthat I'm not actually a British tree, though, right? Your puny, limited brain isn't capable of perceiving the majesty of my being and therefore you feel the need to translate me into something that makes sense to you."

"British trees with magic plums doesn't make sense to me."

"This is _your_ delusion. Don't ask me to explain it."

Whatever. _"_Get ready for wish number two."

"Going to wish yourself back home to Mystic Falls?"

"Home's where the heart is, haven't you heard?" He put the second plum in his mouth.

'_I wish that I was wherever Bonnie is right now.'_

"Clever. But that's against the rules. I can't do teleportation, sorry."

But you can kill Magwyr, just like that? _You suck, magic tree. You really suck_.

_I wish I can go back in time to before I met Katherine. _

"I don't alter time."

_I wish I was two inches taller. _

"You should have drunk more milk when you were a child. I can't change that."

_I wish Klaus dies– _

"No negative wishes about Klaus. Period."

"Fine." _I wish that… I… _A new kind of pain was starting up in his gums. If he didn't get some blood in him soon he'd end up feeding on himself. _'I wish for… more wishes. Unlimited, unrestricted wishes. I want to _own_ you."_

"Seriously?"

"Had to try."_ I wish for Bonnie to become so supremely powerful that not even I can kill her. I want her to be the strongest witch in existence._

"Another selfless one? Granted."

Damon swallowed the plum, felt it go all the way down. "I… Do you know _where _that scent is coming from? It's not me is it…" he sniffed his jersey. Yes. The lusty aroma of death and decay. A maggot crawled around his ear, tickling him. "And would you be _so_ kind as to point in the direction of the nearest watering hole. I need a wash."

"That you do." The tree nodded some branches to the east. "Head east for a couple of miles until you reach a nest of dragonflies. Talk to the hivemaster, tell her I sent you and you shouldn't have a problem. They'll guide you anywhere you want to go. Go find your girl, Damon. Godspeed."

_Talk to the hivemaster… _Right. _And I just follow the dragonflies_...


	28. Mash Up

**AN… this chapter is days after the last one. Bonnie's been slumming it in the wild hiding out while Damon was on his version of a wine tasting tour.**

He appeared in a storm of shadow, crows, rain, blood and dragonflies. A unicorn bolted pass her and shot into the thick tangle of the jungle. A midget ran after it, followed by a flying cat. Bonnie froze.

So much for the Invisibility spell. He was looking right at her. _Hey… you found me…_

"What a coincidence!" he smiled in faux surprise. "A couple of birdies said you might be around these parts. Shame running into you though, while I'm so underdressed," he looked down at himself, his erect cock standing out, long and hard and red. "Apologies for my… state of arousal. But it couldn't be helped."

Of course it couldn't be helped. Perfectly natural. Bonnie remained statuesque. Not as if she hadn't seen a penis before. In the throes of confusion, she nodded. She'd been exposed to crazy Damon a handful of times, enough to know that he was missing a few marbles up top in a pathological way, but this version… She'd never seen _this_ version before.

Sexy, caveman Damon, with a shadow of a beard on his cheeks. Even the buckets of rain couldn't dislodge the chunks of clotted blood caught up in the fibrous mesh of his hair. Blood was on his skin too, caked down like Plaster of Paris. His eyes had gone beyond their usual wild and were practically going staccato up and down and all over her. Everything about him had gone staccato. All his movements, his smile, his face, the interchange of frown and smile. Her eyes hurt just looking at him. Like some greek god out of a Hollywood movie, Caligula probably, he stood there, naked, basking in the shadow around him, watching her. "Damon?"

"Yes, my lover?"

Was he laughing at her?

Was he playing at some game?

"Are you drunk?"

"I've been… drinking. And I've drank a lot, but I don't feel particularly drunk." He flickered over to a tree and began to tandem walk up the trunk. _Vertically_ up the trunk. He did a Michael Jackson moonwalk when he reached a branch, summersaulted, made three and a half rotations, landed on his toes and stuck his finger on his nose. "Could I do that if I was drunk?"

To be on the safe side she shook her head.

"Rain looks good on you," he enunciated, eyes devouring her, making her feel like a Double D girl in a wet t-shirt competition.

"Damon…" She moved her hand over her chest.

The crow in the tree above her cawed. Laughed. "Stop saying my name like that," he drawled darkly.

"Like what?"

"Like if I'm walking cancer." He stretched out a hand in front of him and flipped it over… "Is it the blood? Most of this is unicorn. And a couple witches. Hope they weren't your friends. Eventually, I'll have to kill everybody so I guess it doesn't really matter. Though I could probably leave your friends for last. You could make a list of their names, maybe…"

Bonnie took another step back.

"If you try to run from me again, I'll break your feet. One foot," he leered. "The left foot. Not badly. Probably just some toes, to make walking painful."

"You're not… Damon?"

He frowned. Or she thought he frowned. The blood and the stubble made it hard to tell. "Who do you want me to be?"

_What?_

"Because I don't have to be like this. I can change. I can be more like Stefan if you want. I'll still have to hunt real food, because I won't do that retarded as fuck _vegan_ diet, but in most ways I can be Stefan. Easy. Like that –" He creased his forehead, "Which Stefan do you want? Ripper or Sourpuss, cause I've been doing a lot of ripping lately… And of course, you want Sourpuss Stefan… I can do that. I can be brooding…"

"Why…" she took a step closer to him, hand outstretched and pointing, "Why are you wearing a collar?" _Property of Jaxxon, _it read.

"Collar?" He felt the band around his neck. "Oh… Yeah… this. Didn't notice it. I had to sell my soul," he answered flippantly. "That's old news."

_He had to sell his soul…_

"To Jaxxon? Jaxxon the demon? Why would you do that?"

"To get him to save you. Your body. Klaus was going to kill you, so I–"

"Sold your soul? Are you crazy? Jaxxon's a _demon_! A _bad _one."

"He gave me a fair price, I thought. Your life, for a shoddy, useless…"

She regretted letting him close the space between them. Something about him was dangerous. His eyes had always been hypnotic, but now they were… she couldn't even look away. Compulsion? She was in danger of something other than his fangs and his speed and his strength and his strange, noisy, sharp-beaked birds. He was attacking her with some new power.

"Damon…" she didn't want to be cruel. Though, she'd give her right hand for a broomstick just to keep him back. As hard and as harsh as he was, he could be breakable and fragile too, like a mountain of jagged glass. "I'm a witch. And you're a vampire. You tried to kill me. We can't. We shouldn't even–"

"I know! I know…" he sank to the ground. Leaves and mud squelched under his knees. The rain came down on his face, soaking through his hair wonderfully. "I can change…"

_Has he ever changed? He's dead. And frozen. _"You can't change back to being alive, Damon."

"I'll pretend. I can pretend. If I feed enough, I can get close to body temperature. Look at how long I pretended with Liz, and she didn't know until Mason told her and–"

"I already know what you are!" she shouted over the storm even though he could hear her whispers.

"What am I?"

_Sad. _Kneeling, five feet away from her, so lost… so pliant, so soft… Hug him? Set him on fire? "You're a vampire."

"I love you."

"And you kill people."

"I never killed you. I love you."

"You killed human beings, Damon."

"Forget that."

"Forget that? How?"

"It's easy," he smiled, "Nobody else matters. They were all going to die anyway."

"Everybody's going to die at some point. Living people die, Damon."

"Not everybody. You won't."

"Eventually I'll die too. Everybody dies." A peal of thunder echoed her words.

"No. I'll change you," he whispered.

"I don't want to be a vampire."

"Why not? It's fun."

_It's sad. _"I want to get married someday. Marry a stockbroker, live in the suburbs, have three girls–"

He laughed, sincerely amused, "You–," his eyebrows furrowed, "You think I'd let you do something like that?" his lips curled into a snickering grin. "I'd kill your stockbroker and rip his foetus out of your womb."

"Damon…"

"Kidding," he smiled it away, like a boy lying to his mother. "I'd crash your wedding and make inappropriate toasts, but I wouldn't kill… Why stockbroker? Is money the issue? Because I've got money. We don't have to live in the boarding house with Stefan and Elena. I can by a house, in any suburb you like. "

"I don't want to live in a suburb with you, Damon! I–" she took a step back.

In half a second he had one of her ankles in his wrist. He squeezed. Felt the bone pop and heal…

She kicked him. Right in the chest. Hard.

_Ahh…_

Now that he thought about it, why in hell had he thrown a wish away on her? So she could kick him around?

That hadn't been smart.

"Super healing?" he asked, still propped against the tree that the force of her kick had pummelled him into. His chest hurt. "Super strong… You know, you've got me to thank for that, you know." He tensed as broken ribs healed. "You'll make one hell of a dominatrix, Bonnie."

The next thing she tried was an aneurysm.

It didn't register. "You're not the only one with fancy upgrades. I stopped feeling it about my fifth unicorn in. Witch Country's been good to me too. Try fire. You like fire."

She did try it.

It felt… like falling into a pit of Brazilian fire ants… as opposed to the normal feeling of being flayed and boiled alive in methylated spirit. _Thank you, unicorns. _

After a couple of minutes when he failed to go up in noxious fumes and ash, she let it go.

They stood staring at each other. Sizing up each other. Then he knelt.

"It's customary for the guy to kneel, right?"

"Do _not_ propose to me, Damon."

He shrugged, "No ring, so this is more like a suggestion than a proposal." He passed his fingers across his own throat, bringing forth a dark red line of blood. "Bind yourself to me."

"What?"

"Drink. Drink of me…" _Talk like a creepy vampire much? "_Drink my blood, Bonnie."

"I don't want to."

"You have to. It'll make tracking you down that much easier."

"I don't want to be tracked. Why don't my feelings count?"

"Because they're changeable. You can change, every which way the wind blows, but I need this. I need you." He inched towards her. "I know I'm dead, but I still need things and I need you. If I was human, I'd court you with roses and picnics but I'm a vampire. I have to tempt you with darkness. I have to tempt you with lust and shadows, with the wild rains of summer storms."

"Damon–"

"Bonnie, please," he bit his bottom lip. "I'm down on my knees. Asking you, please…"

His eyes begged on his behalf. She'd never seen his eyes like that. She'd never seen _him_ like that. Almost…

He slit his throat again as the first wound began to heal. "You'll be able to summon me. All you'd have to do is snap your fingers – perfect. Even if you don't love me right now, that's okay. Love doesn't have to be mutual. We can work off of mutual need. I'll just love you extra to make up the slack, and you'll come around to it after some time. When I kill everybody else, you won't have a choice. I'd be that proverbial 'last man on earth'.

"Grams–"

"Fuck Grams. Pretty soon, you'll forget about all the stupid, dead humans and witches. You'll be saying 'Grams, who?' Promise. You're _mine_, Bonnie. You don't belong to your Grams or to Mystic Falls or –"

"I don't belong to you."

"I'll belong to you then, no matter. Same diff. Me and you– Sorry, you and I – maybe you can do some kind of pregnancy spell or something, then we could try the white picket fence thing. Not a lot of hardwares around here so we might have to make the fence out of bones instead of wood. Same diff. And I'd need more people to feed on, because something about this place makes me _really hungry_... but I guess if we have children, I could feed off them. It'd be like having a designated blood donor. Only temporary, of course, until we figure out a way to get back to the real world where I can get fresh prey."

For a while, neither of them said anything.

"Someone please call 911,"he sang, his voice less than perfect, and slurring a bit. Maybe he was drunk.

"Tell them I've just been shot down."

"The assailant's five foot one"

"And she shot me through my soul…"

He couldn't remember any further than that. Haitian reggae music was never his thing, but it seemed applicable, the lyrics.

"Feel my body going cold…" that was the next line, and indeed his body was a little bit on the chilled side. "If this is the love my mother used to warn me about, then I'm in trouble. I'm in deep, deep trouble… Do you know that song?"

"No." She trembled, in cold or fear. Both, maybe. The rain continued to pour down, drenching her, making her dress stick to her like a second skin.

His fangs retracted. She wasn't for biting. She was made for soft touches, tender kisses… His eyes swept over her again, making note of all the places his mouth and his fingers had to explore: the contours of her face, the graceful line of her neck, the under-curve of her breasts and her engorged nipples, the slim muscle of her belly, her sunken navel, the power of her thighs and the wet lips between them… Her knees, her calves… _Down to her toes, I love her. Bonnie. Light of my life. _"Make love to me, Bonnie."

"What?"

"Make love to me," he whispered back with wet eyes. "I want you–"

"Because I'm the only person here and you want somebody to fuck. Go back to the real world and go chase after Elena."

"No!" This time, he actually was crying. And she'd never seen anything near so beautiful. For all his vanity, he'd kept that part of himself tucked away. His eyes were almost glowing in the darkness, like blue fire. "I want _you_, Bonnie," he ground out.

"Since when? I'm not going to be your back-up closet girl!"

"Since…"

"Even if you make something up now, I'm not going to believe it."

"Since that time when you pretended to be dead. When you were willing to die for Elena at the dance. I was going to let you, too, but a part of me wondered why there wasn't someone crazily in love with you, because you're perfect."

"Damon…"

"You're perfect."

"I'm not perfect."

"You could as well as be. Your flaws are so minuscule–"

"What flaws?"

"Jeremy's one. Epic flaw."

"Jeremy?"

"I thought it was a joke, at first. Jeremy? Of all people? You do realise that he was going to let you die to save his sister right?"

"Of all people? Of all _which people_? I _repel _people."

"As the sun repels lesser life forms. It's still perfectly majestic. Divine. Celestial. You're my own personal heaven, Bonnie."

"Damon… Don't try to make me love you because you're suddenly lonely."

"I'm not suddenly lonely. I've been lonely since… since I was human. I'm suddenly in love with you."

"Damon…"

"Stop trying to _not_ want me."

"What?"

"You _know_ you want me. You're a woman – you can't naturally not want me – but you're so preoccupied with what everybody else will think. What will they say about good little Ms Chastity Virgin? Dare she stand amongst the scornful?"

"Damon…"

"I dare you to be with me," he crawled two paces forward on his knees. "Kiss me, I dare you. I double dare you. I double dog dare you. Nobody's watching."

"You can't bully me into–"

"Bully you? You? You're scared of everything. You're scared of what you see, you're scared of what I did, of what I am, but most of all you ought to be scared of walking away from me and never feeling the rest of your whole life the way you feel when you're with me. I'm not bullying you…" he spread his arms wide, grinning. "I'm just a vampire, the _ghost_ of a vampire, kneeling in front of a witch, asking her to love him."

"Damon,"

"I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do."

"You don't believe in love, Damon."

"Well, I believe in your soul, my cock, your pussy, the small of your back… curve balls, high fibre diets, good scotch, that the novels of Anne Rice are self-indulgent, underrated perfection… I believe Arnold knocking up the help a decade ago is totally forgivable. I believe that Darwin had the right of it. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing tofu and fake meat…. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. And I believe I love you."

She smiled at that. Couldn't help it. Old school Kevin Costner. _Cheesy._

"It is my lady…" he drawled, lost in her smile. "O, it is my love. O that she knew she were."

"Damon, I need–"

"You need kissing, badly." He raked his hair back with his fingers. "That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

"I know for certain that you've used that line on Elena. You did, that time in the park–"

"Here's looking at _you_, kid. I'm only looking at you."

"You bit me, Damon. Mauled me and–"

"Love means I never have to say I'm sorry."

"Get over it, Damon!"

"I _wish _I knew how to quit you."

"We're friends Damon, but–"

"Love is friendship on fire."

Could the rain stop falling for five minutes? "Stop trying to look as though you're suffering. Stop begging. Get off your knees–"

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love; but then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love; to be happy then is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy; therefore to be unhappy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness."

"This is crazy." A hand went to her hips, as she imagined how embarrassing the scene would be if it had happened in any other dimension. Here they were, the two of them, alone in the rain, him on his knees… "I'm not jumping into your obsession."

"Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. If you don't start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. You can love me like crazy and I'll love you the same way back. You've found me. Forget your head and listen to your heart. I'm not hearing any heart from you, Bonnie. Run the risk on me, if you get hurt, go back to your safe zone. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without _this_. You have to try. Because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived."

"Damon," she frowned. "I'm…"

Wavering… She was wavering. He could tell because suddenly, she wouldn't meet his eyes. _Finally. _His flesh was screaming out for her.

He inched towards her on his knees. "We should be lovers, and that's a fact."

"Do we have to solve this now?" she asked looking down at him. He was close enough for her to reach out and touch. Close enough… Her hand went tentatively, brushing out a glob of blood from his eyebrow.

"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

"This is insane,"

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides we'll have to make a decision. We have to work out whether our roots have become so entwined together that it's inconceivable that we should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which I can convince you easily that we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away. You and I have it, we have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms fall from our branches we'll find that we are one tree and not two."

She was wavering, she knew. Swooning, into his arms. _Damn. _"Go on," she prompted. "Get it out of your system."

"I love you. You're my only reason to stay alive… if that's what I am."

"That's Twilight, Damon. Don't quote Twilight." _I love you too._

"That's how desperate I am, Bonnie. Kiss me and shut me up."

**AN: This was my most fun chapter to write. **

**I started making it up, and then after the Harry Met Sally modification I wanted to see how many movie lines I could drop in here. So many quotes I can't even remember where all of them are from. I wanted to have Damon do this the cheesiest, cutest way he could. My favourites from all of them is the one from Meet Joe Black – "Love is passion…" Anthony Hopkins is the best. And "Love is a temporary madness…" Captain Corelli's Mandolin.**

**I realise at the end now that if you haven't seen any of these movies, or if you don't geek out over movies and memorise random lines, that this might be kind of lame, and I'll apologise for that. I hope at least one person gets it. I hope at least one person laughed at "I wish I knew how to quit you." (Just picture it, Damon watching Brokeback Mountain, close your eyes, picture that and see if you don't laugh.)**

**Remember when Stefan used to go to school and do history? Classical Literature and Romcoms should be Damon's thing. They never show these guys having hobbies but Damon looks like a closet romantic… If only he wasn't so Elena obsessed, sigh.**


	29. A different kind of possesion

**AN: This one gets a **_**little**_** graphic. A lemon is a hard thing to get right, and if I spend too long on it I feel like a voyeuristic perv. Weird? If it's not your thing, avoid. Seriously you can just skip it. Otherwise, enjoy? It's just sooo **_**weird… **_**I creeped myself out.**

He sat up, squinting. A new pain splitting his brain in two…

"What's wrong?" Bonnie ghosted her fingers up his spine, lackadaisically beginning to come down from her high.

"Uhhh…" _I'm hungry… and your fucking dead grandmother is trying to cast me out… _He stared indolently at the canopy spread above them, at the sun peeping out through the clouds… At the silent lightning… his fangs popped out for a split moment. _I'm so hungry… _"You witches don't believe in privacy… What happens when you have to take a piss? You take a squat over the nearest fern or–"

"Damon," she moved to sit up.

"Stay!"

It came out more like a command than he'd intended. Too much like a threat for her liking, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't have her running away from him again. Witch Country, he'd learned the hard way, was a big fucking country. He'd have to be cautious, until he could come about a decent length of rope. Or chain… "And you won't drink from me?" he asked again. _A ball of twine, even. GPS equipment…_

She shook her head. "Not unless I'm dying."

He ignored that. _Rope. Where would he get rope?_

Her hands moved to her chest, her eyes turned away from him…

"Stop that," he grinded out, a little gentler.

"Stop what?" her green eyes latched on to his.

"Being afraid of me. Being afraid of being with me. Being afraid of being beautiful with me." He took her hands by the wrist and pinned them down on either side of her. In a smooth nanosecond he was straddling her, nuzzling the lobe of her ear. "Be wanton." He bit her, tasting her hot blood and sucking on the piece of flesh.

She hissed at the sting and then moaned.

_Relax…_ It had been too long since he'd had a decent meal. Since he'd had Bonnie… His teeth clamped down on her bleeding ear.

She pushed him off, not as forcefully as he knew she could have… which encouraged him.

"I like your eyes. You've the best eyes I've ever seen." _Well, they were. All green and brown and muddy. Like spring._

She looked away from him.

"What?"

"I'm not Elena," she said to the sycamore tree fifteen yards to her right, because she sure as hell wasn't looking at him.

"I know you're not Elena. You're Bonnie, the girl from the bloody bathtub. The girl I was willing to die for. The girl who saved my slumdog existence. The girl I'm trapped in this magical, under-populated twilight zone with. When we get back to Mystic Falls in a hundred years, give or take _never_, Elena'll be long dead, so this is a non-issue the way I see it."

"What if it isn't?"

Damon swallowed. "What if the non-issue isn't a non-issue? I'm dead Bonnie. Not undead dead, _dead _dead. Mystic Falls is over for me. Anything's that not here and now is a non-issue."

"We can send you back. Resurrect you from this side–"

_Your grams is trying to do that as we speak. _"And what about you?"

"We still have to kill Klaus. We still need Magwyr to–"

If a talking tree hadn't been blowing smoke up his ass, then Mags should be dead. Bonnie should have a body to return to back in Mystic Falls. A life to return to. Whatever. "I don't want to talk about Klaus. I'm naked on top of you, and I don't want to talk about Magwyr. Or Elena. Or Katherine. Or Stefan. Or Rose or Andie or all the other people that don't matter." A rabbit ran out of the bushes distracting him. He half expected it to be carrying a pocket watch. Bonnie watched it pass… then kept her eyes locked on the patch of bush it had disappeared into.

He slapped her hard across her face. So hard even his own skin hurt. "Look at me!" he barked.

The pain came instantly behind his eyes. Her eyes flashed with the lightning that came down so close his hair raised. He laughed, "Good!"

"Damon!" she screamed, fighting against him to sit up, eyes wet and blinking furiously. "I hate you!"

"I said I like your eyes, Bonnie. That's the topic at hand, stop trying to change the subject. That's a virgin tactic. You're _two_ times fucked, by _me_, so enough with the bashful maiden shtick."

She pushed him off with enough force to probably break his neck. He slipped twice trying to regain his balance, then he was back on her.

"You hit me!"

"It hurt me more than it hurt you! You didn't like it?" he grinned. "I thought you'd like it," he ground his hips down on hers, ignoring the tears… "Some girls like it rough."

"Not me."

"You sure?" he pinched her chin, and turned to see the beginning of a bruise. Maybe he shouldn't have hit her, but he had to check that it was real. He really needed just to double check that he wasn't dealing with Magwyr. The Mag-Slap Test – Use if your girl has recently been possessed by Magwyr. If said girl becomes excited by the slap, do not engage in sexual activity. WARNING- Sex with Magwyr is hazardous to your health. Symptoms may include – blood loss, multiple fractures, multi-organ evisceration, visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory hallucinations, emasculation, destruction of your self-esteem, paranoia, nightmares, suicidal ideation, depression, mania, irregular sexual fantasies, death. Note – If said girl does not become aroused by physical abuse, you are advised to apologise. "I like the colour of–"

She slapped him back.

Nothing. "That's weak." He smirked, "Are you weak, Bonnie?"

She hit him again. Hard enough to break skin the second time around. A couple teeth went down his throat.

_Hmm_… He responded by tracing his tongue over her lips. "I like that. Love is supposed to _sting_. What do _you_ like?"

She shut her eyes. "What do you want?" she screamed back at him. "Get off me!"

"I want you." He pressed her back down to the ground with him. "And I'm not getting off you because I can _smell_ how much you want me. I _know _you don't want me to get off you. I want you to open _your_ eyes, look me in _my_ eyes and tell me what you _want_."

"Rapist."

"Please. As if you don't want this. You can full a swimming pool with how much you want this."

"Get off me!"

He readjusted his grip on her hands, pinning them down over her head. "What do you want?"

"Why are you–"

"Bonnie…" he bent and kissed her forehead. The scent of her blood and that constant lub-dub of her heart was getting to him. "I want you… in ways that I can't even describe. I want to drink the blood right out of your heart and give you my own in exchange. I want my cock so far inside you that… that it gets stuck. I want to tear your cunt apart with my teeth; I wish it was a Venus flytrap that would hold on to me and never let me go. I want you in positions Russian gymnasts don't even know about–"

That earned him half an angry scoff.

"I'm Damon Salvatore, certified sex god," he whispered against her ear, snaking his tongue into it. "And if you're going to roll with me you're going to have to step your game up–"

"Step my game up?" she asked, failing to keep her voice from breaking. She raised herself a little, by the strength of her abdominal muscles alone, or magic. "You should be grateful!"

"I _am_ grateful," he brought her fingers to his lips for a quick peck, "I shouldn't ask for more, but I'm a greedy son of a bitch and…"

"And what?"

"And I want more."

"More what?"

"More _you_. When I'm with you… I feel like you… like you want to jump on your witch broom, fly away, and leave me with my dick in my hand."

"I don't have a broom."

"If you had one, would you fly away?"

"No."

_Right, _even when she didn't have a broom he'd had to go fence-jumping and unicorn-taming to get to her. Following dragonflies and flying cats through hill and dale… _The very definition of hard to get._ And even now that she was _got_, after he'd taken to bended knee in the rain confessing every feeling in his heart, he wasn't secure enough to blink. "I think you would."

"I wouldn't."

"Then why can't you look at me when I'm in you? You shut your eyes and go somewhere in your head, and you leave me outside wondering what's going on with you, what's going wrong, who you're fantasizing about – and I hope to God it's not Jeremy–"

"You want me to look at you?"

"I want you to be a wanton, witchy sex goddess, who'll rip my hair out and fuck me till my dick breaks off instead of you being just a–"

"Instead of me being just a what?"

"A regular, ordinary witchy goddess."

"Complaints on the first day..." Her eyes were wet again, and staring off into the distance.

_Wow. _

_Besides being an arrogant, high and almighty, prudish, stuck up, entitled little Ms Perfect, she's a crybaby too. She's a bag of issues and insecurities. _

_Cute. _

A sudden pity and respect for Jeremy blossomed in his heart. The hoops the poor boy had probably had to go through just to get her to hold his hand. The effort he must have put in to get to that slow-dancing phase. Bonnie was a runaway bride in the making. She'd accept the proposal, then pawn the ring and move to Vietnam the next day. She'd fake a dissociative disorder and side step him in the mall. _Cock-a-doodle-doo, she denies me. _Forget public displays of affection… Forget sharing a fudge sundae… Forget sex on the pool table at the Grille... She'd been forthcoming enough with her 'fuck me' mind fuck, but that was when she'd been safe in her own hallucinatory realm. Now… just the possibility of a _rabbit _looking on, a rabbit who for all intents and purposes was getting more sex per day than either of them, had her jumping out of her skin. They'd _never_ have a date. Show up anywhere with dastardly Damon in tow – _excommunication from the nunnery_. He was normally the one against the 'boyfriend' label, but apparently the word had been _taboo_ in her house, punishable by death.

"Just say you want me."

"You're an asshole…" she pulled her knees up tight, like a vice.

_This is negative progress. We're actually going backwards. _"Remember our first time?"

"No."

_Wow. _"In Klaus' bathroom, against the glass?"

"That was Mags."

"It wasn't."

"It was!"

"And five minutes ago, who was that?"

No answer. Except a sob.

He was halfway on the verge of feeling sorry for her. Wasn't her fault she was a shy prude… Except, he'd had first-hand experience of Bonnie Gone Wild, and he was loathe to go back to doing it missionary. To make it clear, he'd take missionary if that was all he could get, but he'd be damned if he couldn't get a little extra out of it… She kept angling her face away from him, and honestly, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't force the issue but a niggling feeling in the back of his cranium was telling him he was running out of time. Running out of time to cement whatever they were, to consummate whatever they were becoming. Sheila and her bitch-hag crew had set up their chanting… He could leave, kill them all, come back… but another niggling feeling was telling him that if he left her, if he disentangled himself from her, if he went ten seconds without feeling her skin on his that she'd go poof and disappear, leaving nothing but magic dust in her wake.

"Why can't you look at me? Am I _too _good looking? Do I hurt your eyes with my outrageous beauty?"

"No."

"Then look at me."

She sniffed.

"Even if you're crying, show me." He raked his hands through her hair… She wasn't really crying, not yet… "Show me your eyes. Please."

Nothing.

He bit her bottom lip sharply, puncturing the soft membrane with his fangs. Green eyes met his in an instant. She didn't fight him off though as he sucked on her, didn't try to electrocute him, set him on fire… She put her hands to his hair, pulling him closer to her…

_Mmm_… His cock went hard between the two of them. His breath hitched, "Fuck me, Bonnie." He pulled one of her hands down around his girth. "Suck me off."

Wouldn't that be something? His hands in her hair, her hot, little mouth tight around him, going up, and down, and back up…

"Suck… you… off?" she asked between kisses. "I–" She stabbed her tongue in and out of his mouth. Sucking on his tongue, moaning into his mouth, "I–"

_Yeah, right. _Twice they'd done it and she was yet to even _look_ at him _down_ _there_.

_Fine, fine, fine… Let's make this all about Bonnie. Certified sex god, yours truly, will take time off from his oh-so-busy scheduling to teach you the art of how to go down on your lover. No trouble, no need for money on the dressing table; it's my pleasure, really. _

"It's easy…" He pressed her back down to the ground. "I'll show you. First step – profuse sensual kisses distributed randomly." A little hurried, he covered her in a flurry on quick kisses, nicking her with his teeth when he lingered at her areola. Bonnie's best physical feature… hands down? Her belly, first off – very _petite, _very toned, very touchable, very kissable, very worshipable… And her breasts. Not the largest, not the freakiest, but very… He pinched a hard, large nipple and watched her _writhe_ underneath him…. Very _nice_. His mouth found hers again. Her eyes were closed again.

"Look at me. Second step… hands." He pinched both her nipples, pulling them out and twisting just enough to have her gasping. "You like my fingers?" he pressed his thumb against her bottom lip and she took it into her mouth, sucking it hard…

_Fuck…_

She moaned as he walked his fingers like a spider up the inside of her thigh on her sticky warmth. He'd been in there just minutes ago, pounding into her. Not one of his best forays, he'd been a bit selfish… He moved his fingers through her hair, parting her folds, pulling on the swollen outer lips. "You want my fingers, Bonnie?"

She nodded, eyes still on him. Beautiful, beautiful, perfect eyes.

He spread her inner folds, rubbing them up and down and tickling her insides. She twitched and bucked as his thumb brushed her hardening clitoris, moaning out his name, beautifully. "Damon…"

"Tell me what you want, Bonnie." His own voice was shaky. The smell of her, the danger in the air… One of his own crows watching on giving him a surreal panoramic view of the two of them entwined on the enchanted forest floor… _Me and my Bonnie. My Bonnie. My Bonnie. My Bonnie… _"What do you want?" he whispered, not even hearing himself. He could hear grass rustling somewhere, someone stepping over bramble, his crows cawing raucously cheering him on. "Who do you want, Bonnie?"

"You."

_Aw, shucks… _A stupid teenaged grin broke out over his face in that moment.

_I win._

_Take that! I win!_

"You want me inside you?" He stabbed his finger into her and pulled it away wet.

"Damon!" her hips swerved up to follow his hand.

"You want to taste yourself?"

She shook her head.

He stuck the finger in his own mouth, tasting her, her eyes trained on him all the while. "Who else knows what you taste like, Bonnie?"

She shook her head again, eyes wild in a sexy panic that suit her. She was something an artist should paint, her hair tangled in leaves and knots, her mouth just slightly open… _heavenly._

He licked the underside of her breast over her heart partly just to taste her sweat and partly just to feel her heartbeat with his mouth. That pulse of pulses… "Who's been here, Bonnie?" He took the nipple in his mouth and sucked, sliding another finger inside of her. "Who, Bonnie? Who's kissed you like this?" he groaned, pulling away from her breast, licking his way down her ribs. "Who's kissing you, Bonnie? Who–"

The pain in his head exploded. _Sheila?_

"_Get off her."_

"_No."_

He broke his gaze away from Bonnie to scan the woods around them for the old bitch.

"_Get off her, vampire. She's not for you."_

He stabbed another finger into her, curling them around her inside and raising her ass off the ground. _"This one is mine."_

"_She is not for you, Damon!"_

"_She's already mine." _He swung one of her legs over his shoulder and adjusted his grip on her waist, spreading her open in front of his face. _"And she's wet and willing." _ The pink flesh puckered and clenched around his fingers, desperate for his touch. _Beautiful_. Someday, he'd shave her. Oil her down. So small, so neat. No wonder she was so tight around him.

"_Stop this!"_

He pulled his fingers out, licked them clean. "Tell me what you want, Bonnie?"

"Fuck me…" she breathed, biting down on her bottom lip. "Fuck me, Damon. Please!"

He pulled her up closer to her face, her languid legs draping over his arms, and blew across her. He could be wicked and not touch her. Tease her into an orgasm… He wanted to thread it out. Make her beg and cry for it. If he only had time… She was the type of girl to go to work on, carry her right up to the edge and bring her back down. He could _talk_ her into an orgasm. Just the right words, the right voice… He spread her legs a little wider, letting the cold air do its work.

"Damon…" She was dripping now. A trickle running down and into the crack of her ass.

He wasn't normally big on going anal… Should he? He couldn't decide. And then there was Sheila and her gaggle watching on… Anal with an audience? It wouldn't be fair to Bonnie… he'd save that for the next time he had a bedroom. With walls and doors and such.

She had one of her breasts in her hand, fiddling with a nipple.

Was she… A girl like Bonnie… so utterly moral…

Another hand came down between her legs, searching… He let her get two fingers and a couple pumps in before he swatted her away. He'd pay in blood to watch Bonnie get herself off, but sometime _way _inthefuture… when he had some fucking privacy_. _

"_Who thought her how to do that?" _he threw to Sheila, revelling in the woman's palpable disgust. "Does it hurt?"

Bonnie nodded, eyes glazed over.

He pressed his baby finger against her anus, not going inside, just enough to make her squirm. The walls of her vagina flared, making a sucking wet sound.

"Please… Damon…"

"With what?" He flashed his tongue over her opening, spreading her inner folds.

"Anything."

"Anything?" He twisted the finger in her ass, as the muscle gripped him. _"You here that? What do you think she wants? I think she means my cock. You got a measuring tape on you? How many inches of cock you think she can hold in her sweet little cunt, Sheila? I say seven. Eight if I ram it in."_

"I want you to come for me, Bonnie," He nuzzled her clit with his nose. She was almost there already, _dripping _for him. He'd have to break Bonnie down in reverse, sexually at first, emotionally after. She didn't respond to words well at all. Prolonged foreplay, extrapolated sex, and maybe, just maybe, he'd get a cuddle after. That was the name of the game. Play on her teenage sexual need, and then maybe, the morning after, she'd not scream in horror and try to set him on fire. Maybe they'd have breakfast… He pinched her clit. It was large as far as clits went, sticking out a bit, begging for some attention. He'd work a symphony on that, sometime. "Come for me, Bonnie."

"Yes," her fist tightened painfully in his hair. He really didn't have to do much again. She was right there, tottering at the brink.

"I want to taste it, Bonnie. Let me taste you." He bitdown on her swollen nub. Hot pulsing blood filled his mouth as he sealed his lips over her. His tongue brushed up and down her slit then he pushed it inside of her. In and out, tongue-fucking her.

"Yes…" she fisted dry leaves and mud.

"_Stop it!"_

"_Come stop me. She tastes like…" _he really couldn't put a flavour to it. _"Pomegranates and veal and…" _Whatever… The first wave of her orgasm made her tremble in his hands. And her eyes… At least he had eye contact. They were glazed over, narrowed to slits and gazing straight into his. Straight into his soul. One of his hands drifted away from her and down to his needy cock, painfully hard and painfully neglected. He never let himself go untended, usually. According to his MO, at that point, he should have already gotten his load off, about twice. He should have a bellyful of blood by now… _"Bonnie." _Her thighs tightened around him, crushing his face into her.

"Damon… Ah…" she broke, filling his mouth with her blood and creamy goodness. A squirter… who'da thunk it? Good old, sex kitten in the making, Bonnie. He lapped at her, carrying her through it. Her body went limp, her panting raspy breathing the only sound he wanted to hear. He bit her again, taking advantage of the haze point to get a quick feed in. He latched down on her femoral, sucking hard, pulling blood out of the artery.

Was there anything in any world more beautiful than a post-orgasm, naked Bonnie? No one beside him should see her like that. No one beside him should ever get to feel that electricity moving through her when she came.

Quickly, he changed their positions, pulling her down on his cock, his fangs plunging down into her neck. The plan had been to go gentle. The plan had always been that. _Slow and steady wins the race._ Except he couldn't help himself. Nearly all of him fit in her. Nearly, she was so tight around him his options pretty much boiled down to glacial drift or pound.

"_Stop it!"_

"_How hard do I give it to her, Sheila?" _Couldn't she see he was busy? Annoying much? Voyeuristic much? He let go of Bonnie's throat_. _Feeding on her to stop his craving would be like trying to get full on caviar. The bushes ruffled with movement. "Bonnie…"

The fuckers were actually going to make a move on him. What did they think he'd do? _"You can't kill me. I'm already dead. Twice now."_

"_We'll send you back."_

"_I'm not going back without Bonnie. You better work on killing me. Or I'll fucking kill all of you. Always so high and mighty, understand this – Bonnie is mine!"_

"_Leave her alone! You don't deserve her. Don't be selfish!"_

"_Selfish?" _Had he ever said he was selfless?Why were they acting like they just cracked some ancient code? Selfish? And? Not sexually, at least. He just had certain… _preferences_. As in, he preferred to have a seventeen year old witch straddling him.

Why shouldn't he?

Who else was there? Elena? Katherine? As far as sex went, human trumped vampire any day of the week. All warm and sweaty and panting… sometimes a dead guy needed that. Two vampires going at it… He could stick his dick in a bowl of ice and get the same effect, just with less biting. Human beat vampire any day of the week and witch beat human. He'd tangoed with some real fire-cracker witches, but even the lamest of them had left him with memories of damn good times. The minute you put your dick in a witch, you leave all your worries behind. Life instantly becomes better and that was the only way he could really put it. Just feeling that _power_ around you, holding you, draining you out. And Bonnie, bouncing on his lap… swallowing him, crushing him… _burning him… _Timingherrhythm,he thrust up inside of her, pushing as far as he could and feeling her squeeze. Then he stopped. He'd let her have this one… Let her scratch her itch on his pole… Selfish?

"_She's my heir, Damon. You'll corrupt the entire line!"_

"_Do I fucking care, Sheila?"_

"_She wasn't born to feed a vampire. She wasn't born for you. She has a destiny! She has a path that's been lain down. Let her go."_

"_Let her go?" _Hesecuredhis grip on her. _"Because of some ordained vow she made to be the saint martyr of Mystic Falls? Sheila I swear, I'll kill you."_

"_Again?"_

"_The first time wasn't my fault, but I'll fucking kill you now! You come here and I'll rip your fucking throat out." _Bonnie came around him, her entire body quivering, her arms weak and still clinging to him. He held her. Feeling her heartbeat thumping so hard against his chest.

"Love me, Damon," her lips against his neck, the sexiest thing in the world.

"Fuck it, Bonnie. You don't have to ask." He used a knotty tree root for leverage as he thrust up into her, "I do."

"Just love me. Only–" she broke off as another orgasm rocked through her body.

He exploded inside her as she clenched him. "Only you," he mumbled, kissing down her throat, his bite already healing, sadly... He needed a permanent way to mark her… A stamp, a collar, something permanent.

The first one he recognised was Esme, with her sad-ass doe-grey eyes. Then Bree… chanting the same-old, same-old mumbo jumbo. Some _strong_ mumbo jumbo, down to his bones, it hurt him.

_Fuck… _

Gloria… Sheila…

"Bonnie…" he pulled out of her gracelessly. _Fuck… _

His fangs were already out… nothing much to do beside kill them all…

Bonnie lay there, languid, her body a trembling, heaving masterpiece. The sun was coming through the leaves just right to make her glow, to make her wet thighs glisten. _Ah, Bonnie. Light of my life. Fire of my loins. _It hurt, not touching her…

Esme stayed at the periphery, chanting on with the rest of them. So did Bree… Only Gloria and Sheila approached… A part of him wished he at least had pants on… instead of being so excruciatingly naked. He felt as if he were _extra _naked. He used to have more layers, didn't he? He used to be a complicated guy… Now he was running naked through forests, heart on his sleeve, dick waving like a flag. He pulled up his lip and ran his tongue over his fangs. Sharp enough for witch-hide, "Sheila?"

"Damon, don't–"

Don't what? He zoomed in on the attack. Second time's the charm. His teeth sank in with no resistance at all. He pulled back and spat… an assorted mouthful of gore – some oesophagus, some windpipe, some cartilage, some carotid, a little jugular vein. Mmm… he'd damn near bit her head off_. Well, I'd sworn, hadn't I? Nobody listens to me until I start killing people. _He let the carcass drop, chuckled a little bit at the way it just… _crumpled,_ and started stalking after Bree. He'd have to come up with a creative way to kill her. _How many times can you rip the heart out of the same woman before it gets old? Once?_

She gave up her chanting and started running. He followed, taking his time. Half the fun was in the chase, and her screams were just so… _soothing? Is soothing the right word? Hypnotic?_

"You were always a noisy girl, Bree," he called after her. Well, she was. How many times had they woken up her roommate with her incessant moaning and screaming? One of the loudest fucks in his recollection. He'd rip her throat out too, he settled. Quick, dramatic… why not?

Why'd he gone so long without feeding?

Damon stretched, using his crows to scan the area.

Twenty–seven witches in all. That would hold him for the while.

_Take it slow on the rest… Small bites. Waste not, want not. Every drop. Bleed them dry._

His head hurt so badly though, he didn't want to be gentle. Gentleness ought to be reserved for Bonnie only. Everybody else could get–

_Thinking about Bonnie, where…_

Fuck…

He tried to blot out the rest of the chaos all around him and zone in on that precious, little heartbeat.

_Ahh… _There she was chanting right alongside with Gloria. His little Bonnie. Naked and proud and beautiful. Was she crying? Maybe, but it had a nice effect. Some people were beautiful even when they cried. _Look at her. My witch. _Had he ever seen a woman so utterly perfect? He could imagine her on a stool, naked, strumming a cello. Could she play a cello? He'd forgotten to ask. No matter, he'd teach her. He was lost in the shape of her lips as she chanted, even the pain of their spell forgotten. He'd have to gag her in the future, of course, which would be a shame. Maybe invest in a cage... A _gilded _cage – the gold would match her skin. A gilded cage for his little flight-prone, love-resistant bird. Maybe some kind of harness… Tie her up… _handcuffs? Hot candle wax? _She was always so fond of candles…

A witch came running up to him with something that looked like a pipe, wherever she'd gotten a pipe from. He flickered away, popped up behind her, grabbed the pipe and planted it in the middle of her skull.

The he reached Bree. Ripped her heart out again. For the irony, or whatever they'd call it. Serendipity? Faith? Whatever…

Another witch, a chubby one, he grabbed her intestines and strangled her with it. Not an original move, he'd seen it in a Martial arts movie, but which one of them would know that?

The fourth one he drank from. Pulled out the abdominal aorta and sucked on it like it was a straw. He was getting really good at 'grabbing a meal on the go'. The aorta technique he could definitely see becoming a favourite. He got more out of the meal. At least two liters more than what he'd have got from the carotid. The only downside was that it killed them faster. Not a _real _problem, but sometimes he liked the pulse.

He killed witch number five by a simple draining of the ol' carotid, for comparison sake.

Nope. Too much annoying struggle.

The one after he decapitated and tried to drink the blood that streamed out, dangling the head over him. Messy, but the effect was nice. Feeling the blood pitter patter down like rain. If he ever got that blood bath up and running, he'd have to put in a shower too. With a detachable showerhead.

_Who's next?_

One woman who looked vaguely familiar… "Susan?" he waved to her. Yes, tall, graceful, used to teach ballet in Manchester. They'd been almost friends."If I'd known it would have killed you, I wouldn't have asked you to do it. She wasn't in the tomb anyhow, so… how's it been? You look good, as usual. Almost edible," and he smiled, crinkling his eyes at the thought of how her warm blood would feel on his fingers.

"I'm casting you out, Damon!" Bonnie screamed.

Oh… He really would have to gag her at some point in time. It was his wish powering her up. _His_ wish. _He_ was the one who'd died and made her queen of paradise lost. Now she was casting him out? "Yeah? You and what army?"

"_I'm_ the army."

Cute. "Well bring it on, witch."

**AN: No comment. **

**I was going to go fluff, but then I thought that would be a cop out. I mean, from the get go in my head this was supposed to be about Crazy Evil Selfish Damon and Cherubic Bonnie. What I was really hoping for was to get that classical vampire Dracula seduction feel and add Damon's twisted craziness to it. This chapter was about 1,500 when I finished it the first time and then it just mutated into this. I had no control over this. None. It spiralled and wrote itself. Just give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. All feedback appreciated. **


	30. When the chloroform wears off

A beam of yellow sunrise was coming through the window transforming her room into one big shimmer. Her eyes opened cautiously, her hands treaded slowly… _I'm asleep in my bed…_

"Pancakes in five," her father called up. As per usual.

_Okay…_

Had she or hadn't she just been in a forest, chanting out a spell?

Had she or hadn't she been slumming it for months in some magical witch dimension?

_The_ _Witching_ _Side…_

_The Aventine…_

"Bacon?" her father called again, "Or you want some of the chicken from last night?"

She didn't remember the chicken from last night but whatever… "Chicken's cool. And the bacon. Both?"

Her father grunted something.

_Okay… _

She climbed to the edge of the bed gingerly and swung her legs over. _Ah! _Pins and needles! The joints locked up.

_A dream?_

A very twisted sort of dream, not exactly a nightmare, but no fantasy either… Damon had ripped her grandmother's throat out. And then there'd been a crazy blood-drinking witch with red hair… and Klaus had killed Damon… and she'd turned Greta to dust… Elijah and a sword… naked in a restaurant…

_Not a dream?_

She was in some weird cotton gown that was revealing enough to be considered lingerie. Diamond necklace around her neck, not humming with energy and power, just plain old sparkle.

Her reflection in the mirror on her wall caught her attention. She was Bonnie. Still.

And Damon, in some world or the other, in some reality or the other, had kissed her. Everything was blurry, Klaus, Elijah, Geraldine, Magwyr… all of it was a mush of confusion. Except that Damon had kissed her.

More than kissed her.

The gown came over her head, and she stood, examining herself in the mirror.

She remembered him biting her, but there weren't any marks… Her fingers traced over her lips, up her nose, around her eyes… as if she were a blind person trying to recognise herself. Her hands went back to her mouth.

She did _not_ kiss Damon. Make a move on a guy already swearing his heart and soul over to Elena? Her mouth knew better than to do something stupid like that. She remembered crushing his throat and scooping the blood out with her tongue, but all of that had to be part of the dream. Right?

Damon did not kiss her.

They'd known each other over more than a year, and he'd never shown any indication of wanting to get that much closer to her. They'd danced at that sixty's thing, and that had been something. And he'd trailed his fingers down her face that time he'd wanted the stone to open the tomb. He'd mauled her a couple hours after that… and there was that time down in the old witchhouse, when he'd started to brush a cobweb off her face and ended up cupping her cheek… Had that happened? She remembered how she'd involuntary pushed her cheek into the touch, and how his face had... _twisted…_ and the tip of his tongue had flickered over his lips… The entire thing had lasted picoseconds, if so long…

_Dream!_

She'd ended up having a massive Damon dream, hadn't she? _Is that something that happens? Too much exposure to Damon fumes and Damon eyes and Damon smiles? Damon induced unconsciousness, Damon induced hallucinations. Damon induced psychosis? _

Was she still with Jeremy? She wondered. If everything that happened over the last couple of weeks was all in her mind, then she supposed so.

If not… Then…

_Hmm._ Her eyes took in her own naked form and she tried to imagine what some hot dude, say Damon, would think. Decent breasts. She'd give them a six out of ten. No, you know what? She'd give them an eight. _Eight._ Good perkiness. Nice areola to skin colour contrast. Decent size. Decent amount of bounce. Neck… Very biteable. What kind of vampire would say no to a neck like that? No pendulous jowls of fat. Not doubling chin. Nice muscle… Her stomach was booming… A work of art - it couldn't get any flatter. Plus the faint edging of a six pack? That was hot, right? She turned looking at her back and ass. _Top_ _notch_. She made a full circle then struck a pose.

I have magic. Magic is hot. _I _am hot.

So what if she didn't have Halle Berry's facial symmetry? Who did? She was still hot. Totally hot. Jeremy would be lucky with a girlfriend half as hot as she was. Which other senior out there was going to put their name down for his emotional bag of ex-stoner issues? Damon… He could do better though… He could get the Russian swimsuit model. He could get the chick tall enough to qualify to be an air hostess, with legs that went up, and up and up…

_Love is friendship on fire._

He'd said that to her, but the thing was, they weren't really friends. They never hung out. He killed her grandmother. He was perpetually in love with Elena and was on a mission to inject himself into every facet of the girl's life. He practically lived at Elena's.

Sometimes she wondered if he even knew her name. What with all the 'Witchy, Judgey' appellations. They had nods, the occasional 'thank you', he'd grabbed her that time they were torturing Mason, they had a mutual willingness to die for Elena, they had mutual friends Alaric and Stefan, they had irregular glances that were about 3% eye sex only because, by default, Damon could probably _impregnate_ a woman by eye sex alone. His eyes were just that hot and their _lowest_ eye-sex output setting was 3%. He turned _off _his sexy when he dealt with her. Know who he put in on for? _Elena_.

Bonnie sighed as she palmed her ass. A little more ass, and about three or four inches in the height department, and she might have had him. A Bulgarian ancestor might have helped too. Why could she not have had some ancient doppelgänger too? Would the universe fall to pieces if for once, if in their own little Milky Way system, Planet Earth took a day off from revolving around Elena Gilbert?

Ecosystems _that _dependantrarely thrived.

If she had to pick a theme song, she'd want it to be that "Only Girl in the World" thing Rihanna did. Currently her theme song would be… probably the song from Baywatch. _I'll be there… Whenever you need me. _She'd be Hasselhoff, running to the rescue, galloping through the waves like a jackass. Elena'd be the flailing body underwater… she'd pull the girl to rescue, drag her back to shore… then all the paramedic people would crowd her out and forget about her existence… Then all the beach guys would have a competition or something to see who got to give mouth-to-mouth…

The first time it had happened… so long, long ago… the first Elenafication she'd ever witnessed… Matt. He'd been very blond back then. Less poor. More happy. Less brooding. More carefree. And the three of them had been hanging out at the pools. She and Elena had been taken turns at teaching him to back-paddle… He'd been the first boy she'd ever crushed on. Then Elena's hair had got caught in a crack and they'd had to issue a nationwide State of Emergency – locked down the pool – and Matt rode with her in the ambulance… And that was that.

_What does Elena look like naked?_

_How much better than me?_

_I know for a fact that I have better legs._

She needed a guy to make her feel a little revolved around too. Caroline had the wolf-boy/cool football jock/rich guy boyfriend thing going. Elena had the "two brothers battling for her heart" thing down solid. Why should she be stuck with rehab boy? No offense to the Jere-bear, he was cute and all, but really? He was a living cauldron of angst. Not a feel-good guy, at all. People like Jere needed upbeat, ra-ra girlfriends… like who she used to be when she was a cheerleader, before she got all serious and turned witch-martyr for hire.

_Shit… _So she'd have to move. Staying in Mystic Falls to pine over Damon and have fantasy make out sessions wasn't going to cut it. Really, it wasn't. She'd had just about enough with being the friendly neighbourhood witch too. Nobody appreciates witches. They end up used and abused like ten dollar whores…

She could take up with Klaus maybe. He was hot. Totally hotter than Damon… maybe. _And _there was that accent. If Damon was an eyefucker, then Klaus was a voice fucker. Ultra hot. She couldn't even imagine what he'd sound like in a bedroom. He didn't look like a groaner, or dirty-talker. Honestly, she kind of had the feeling he'd be the submissive type under all that hoopla. She could totally see him in handcuffs paying some woman in leather to piss in his mouth and flay his skin with a razor wire whip. Totally eew, but something about his eyes seemed to scream, "Do whatever you want with me. Make it hurt or I won't feel it."

Which was super hot. She'd whip him or whatever shit he was in to if it meant come Prom she could show up with him in tow and be all 'In your face, motherfuckers.'

He'd probably bite her though. He looked like a biter. And he looked like one of those "I'll so totally brainwash you" type of guys, too. She already had to muck through her Damon fever, no point in jazzing herself up for another big bad vamp. She was supposed to hate them, after all.

Her fingers went down between her thighs and lingered. Had Damon been there? Really? Or was it still virgin territory? She remembered his tongue plundering through her, making her feel like… like… like the Big Bang was happening all over again a couple inches up her vagina. She remembered him pounding into her on a forest floor, stabbing in to her against a panel of glass overlooking a Canadian highway.

_Real?_

_Not real?_

She didn't know which way to wish. To have actually in real life done the nasty with the nastiest guy she knew would be totally… completely awesomely epic. Ground shaking, epic. Scream it from the mountaintops, epic. Tattoo it across her ass, epic. Print it out on a t-shirt, epic. She caught herself on the verge of giggling, one giant shit-eating grin across her face.

For a brief while, when she'd been dreaming, or whatever, she'd been Damon's girl and it had been… boombastic, if that was a word. Near Damon her heart had been all Boom, Boom, Boom. She'd say something sultry and he'd have this reaction, this "Only Girl in the World" reaction… She remembered how his nose felt trailing down her neck, how his lips had felt around her nipples, how his hands had felt when he'd held her, and moved inside her, and climaxed inside her. All of that Boom, Boom, Boom. Right up to where he'd killed her grandmother, again…

Couldn't he have left a mark or something? A nice little note in a felt tip pen 'Damon's been here'. If people could take the time to write up a bus seat, couldn't he have made a little effort? Hell, even a set of teeth marks would have been fine. She'd have seen it, or felt it when she'd gotten up, and thought 'oh right, I'm Damon's girl now. Sweet.' Then she'd have gone back to sleep like a baby. She wouldn't have all this, 'he loves me, he loves me not' doubt…

"Give me a sign," she willed the heavens.

A piece of paper fluttered on her dressing table.

Huh.

Not a comet, but it'll do. It was a card. Hand drawn picture of a dove on the front. Calligraphy on the inside. "Bonnie Bennett," it started, "I'm glad you are back to your original condition. I owe you tremendously for accomplishing a task I have long held impossible – the vanquishing of Magwyr. You'll be coming into an inheritance of witching power soon that may prove to be uncontrollable at this point. I offer my services toward your supernatural education. Zero ulterior motive. No unwanted sexual advances will be made." Skip line. "Yours gratefully and sincerely," and he skipped a whole lot of space to make room for the massive cursive 'e'. "Elijah."

And a phone number.

Huh.

_No unwanted sexual advances will be made._

Huh. She crumpled the paper. Who'd want an advance from him? It's not like she had a vampire fetish. Damon first, Klaus second, Stefan third. That was it. And she did _not _want another power upgrade. She wasn't trying to get some god complex. _I'm a normal girl_. Her dad was reheating chicken downstairs and flipping pancakes.

She unfolded the note.

_No unwanted sexual advances will be made. _What would this oddly asexual man consider a _wanted_ sexual advance? How would he differentiate? Or was he that much of an expert on all things sexually oriented? What would _his_ hangups be? What would the reaction be like showing up anywhere with _him_? Oddly, she could see Elijah and her dad getting along. Her dad hated Jeremy, for one thing – 'stoner kid' was the nickname. Her dad was unaware of either Salvatore brother's existence… Elijah and he'd have coffee on the patio, talk about Abba concerts and black and white movies. Quintessentially the perfect guy to show off to a parent. The he'd give her a corsage, rent a limo and take her to prom… where he'd look more like a chaperone than a date… and he wouldn't know how to dance… he'd just stand sexily in a corner and ignore everyone else in the room. Cue "Only Girl in the World" theme song…

If she had to have a vampire boyfriend, she could do worse than Elijah.

Ben for instance, had been worse.

Anyway, she riffled her hair and tried to strike another _wild _pose, she wasn't Elijah's type. Not in a long shot. Elijah liked them dangerous, he liked them blood-sucking. Her little _deal_ with Magwyr had proven to be more two-way than expected… She had a nice little chunk of brain cells devoted to Magwyr and all her black magic shit. Elijah's type was… a weird mix of 'naïve' and 'hooker'.

Actually… She pulled her hair up, bit her lip slightly and widened her eyes all childlike… Actually, she could pull that off if she tried, probably. She memorised the look. Filed it under, "For Elijah."

Klaus wanted the "I'm a slave for you" version. She did a little bit of the Britney dance… as much as she remembered anyway.

Stefan was all about the innocence and the crying damsel in distress shtick… She could fall (jump) down a well, maybe, but she'd never get the panic right enough to convince him. Not like she'd be crying and freaking out like _that_ time, and with Stefan, it'd have to be dramatic. He had to watch your parents die in a car crash, and all that. She'd never be able to out-damsel Elena. Come to think of it, she was probably behind Caroline even in that line up. Even with super vampire powers, Caroline still managed to play the ultra-cute bubbly damsel card.

Damon. What did Damon want?

A strong resemblance to Katherine would be an advantage. She could cross that off, all she had was Emily the 'handmaid'. Big whoop. Why couldn't Emily have had some immortal lover come back to Mystic Falls? Shit just wasn't fair.

He'd said something about her hair… curls or straight… She ran her hands through the tangles. Straight. Definitely.

Be wanton… what was that supposed to translate into? No underwear? She'd go panty-less in a skirt. Done. _Bra_? To bra or not to bra?

He had said something else to her… what?

Right, her eyes… Nothing to do about that…

What did Damon like? Besides everything about Elena and Katherine…

Shit. A couple strands of hair came out in her hands. If there was any sliver of a hint of a suggestion of something between she and Damon, then that meant she had something that Elena didn't have. Either something extra or something different. Like magic, she'd have thought except Damon hated all things witchy, probably just as much as all things witchy hated Damon.

By the way, he killed her grandmother. Twice.

But all that was the bad ending of the dream, right? All dreams got nightmarish coming round to the end. The good part had been excellent.

Being with Damon, not even _connected _to him, just in the same room was like being at the top of a Ferris Wheel. Or on a high-speed Merry-go-Round. She'd watched a couple episodes of The Wire. Maybe kissing Damon was like shooting up heroin. Being kissed by Damon was like back to back Christmas mornings. Damon inside her? Indescribable. Not that she had anything at all to compare it to, but she really couldn't imagine it getting any better.

No wonder he'd had Caroline all wrapped around his finger. She'd been a little judgy there. Now a year later, what the fuck did she have to say for herself? She wasn't even compelled. She'd been bedazzled by the… by the Damon.

She'd call him.

No phone.

He'd smashed it that day he'd left for England… to do Magwyr's spell to resurrect the so-called demon slayer.

And big fuck… Magwyr was real.

She couldn't have any doubts about that. Reality was starting to crystallize out of the murky dream vapours.

She'd been naked in a restaurant.

She'd been three quarters naked in Elijah's house.

And they'd tried to kill Klaus. And failed. Epically. And she'd snatched up Damon's soul and pulled him into the witchy afterlife… where he trespassed in the Garden and killed a shitload of witches, some of whom he'd already killed in the real world, like that woman Esme...

And they'd had sex, repeatedly. Wall sex, missionary in the witch forest, oral, also in the witch forest, and then… she didn't know the name for that last one where she'd been in his lap, him pumping up into her…

_Klaus is still alive. _Another big fuck.

And that whole confession scene where he'd said that he loved her… that happened. And she'd been crying… because… because she'd thought that he'd go back on everything he said as soon as he was back in range of Elena's gravity.

Bonnie gasped. While she'd been hopping around like some giddy schoolgirl, his orbit had been realigning. His axis was re-tilting. He was resetting his equinox and solstice, his seasons, his sunrise and sunset. He was synchronizing his watch to Elena Worship Time.

Her knees gave way under her. Back to square one.

Back to being the witch he called when he needed to find somebody or do some chanting.

Back to being the wallflower.

Back to being called 'Witch'.

Back to the sneering.

Back to the dying for Elena.

No more 'I love you'.

"Hey," her father rapped on the other side of the door, "Everything okay in there?" He jiggled the handle.

"Go away!" she screamed back, but she was half crying.

"You pregnant?"

"No!"

"Well, it's not so bad then," he jiggled the door knob again, "As long as it's not that, we can talk about it. Is it the stoner? The bartender boy? He wants you to do drugs? The police? He's making you lie to the police for him? If you're pregnant, just tell me he's not the father–"

"I'm still a fucking virgin!" she screamed through the door, ignoring the 'No Obscene Language' policy of the Bennett house.

She heard a plate clink on the ground. "Fine. Some one of your teachers keeps calling, Saltman or something. Had to take the phone off the hook, I think he does drugs too." He groaned, "Well, we've got some mice, so… if you plan to eat this, ya _might_ want to grab it up. I'm heading out to work. Be back either tonight or early tomorrow. You cool with that? Spend the day with Forbes or somebody decent. Not that Gilbert kid." His footsteps trudged away.

She waited the half hour until she heard the front door lock, before venturing out for the plate. She'd be totally dependant on her dad, she realised. He'd have to home-school her the rest of the year, because no way was she showing her face in public again. Nowhere she'd bump into Damon. She'd never be able to go to the Grille again. She'd never be able to come within ten feet of Stefan again. How the fuck had there been so many witnesses?

Elena? She'd never be able to look the girl in the eye again. Ever.

_Sorry Queen Elena, I tried to steal one of your devotees._

_It's all right my child. I forgive you._

_From now on, I'll be content with you little brother. After all, once you go Gilbert…_

_Oh, dear Jeremy. He can use a friend._

And Stefan. She'd burned down the boarding house. She'd teased him, then she'd hurt him, then she'd burnt his house down. She could remember how he'd been that day, all nervous modesty taking two glances if so much at her…

She been in Damon's bed, buck naked, in a frenzied haze of masturbation… a three day haze…

Fuck.

She pulled on the baggiest, muskiest, least sexy sweater in her wardrobe, pulled on a pair of granny panties with loose elastic in the waist and a My Little Pony print, sweatpants, socks, another layer of socks because her feet were cold… then she crawled into the darkness under her bed. She'd hibernate. Go into a nice little cocoon and come back out when everyone else was old and amnesic…or when Damon and Stefan moved out of Mystic Falls… or when Klaus came to kill her.


	31. Being a vampire doesn't totally bite ass

"So," Alaric plopped a lime and two guavas in the blender and added half a litre of blood, "I get that you're in a bad mood…" he poured in the remnant of a beer he'd been drinking, He wasn't quite show how the flavours would come together, but he was operating by the golden law of alcohol – Ever so much, never too much. You can add too much salt to an egg, and you can have too much milk in your coffee, but you could never have too much alcohol in your blood.

Maybe he should right a handbook for newbie vampires. A How-to-survive guide full of helpful tips…

"You disappear for a month and change, and then show up naked in the middle of my place… Is this not a situation that warrants an explanation?" A little milk to bring it all together… And half a peach. A dollop of bourbon… "I mean, dude, I have a jar on the mantelpiece with your ashes in it. Not that I'm not glad to see you, but what the fuck?"

Damon didn't respond, so he hit the button and watched his breakfast come together as one.

_Well, isn't this something._

His old pal Damon was back from the dead. Again.

He'd woken up to the sound of cawing to find a bare-assed Damon, and a shitload of crows squatting in his already shoddy abode. The last time he'd seen Damon that out of it was… Okay, he'd never seen Damon that out of it. He'd get down in a funk from time to time – Elena funks – but this… This was just flat out sad.

He'd missed the guy, truth be told. Getting killed by Klaus and then waking up as a vampire had been… traumatic… but as pissed as he was at Damon, he'd been just the teeniest bit psyched about it.

_I'm not going to die._

_I'm not going to have to check my prostate ever._

_No need to worry about having zero groceries in my cupboard…_

_I'll never go bald._

_I'm a fucking vampire._

And the sad fact was that Damon was his best friend.

_Only _friend.

Whatever had happened to him, it had something to do with Bonnie. Crazy, firestarter Bonnie. Gone were the days when she'd been just another innocent piece of jailbait in the third row of his history class. Overnight, literally, she'd turned into a femme fatale. Which was hot in theory but not so good in practise. The last he'd heard before his death she'd been teleporting across the Atlantic with Damon and Elijah.

Since his death, he'd stopped giving much of a fuck. Most likely, she was still unconscious. The day after he'd died, some Brit or the other had dropped her off at Caroline's unconscious. Caroline, being the daughter of a sheriff, you'd think would have an eye for detail, but she didn't. _Brits_… Not a lot of them in Mystic Falls. Not a lot of them outside of Britain, generally. She hadn't remembered a single specific detail about his face, what he wore, his height, not a fucking thing at all… So with nothing to actually work on, he'd decided to say _'Fuck it, whatever. Bonnie's back, yay. Let's toast with some blood_.'

Then Elijah had popped up and chloroformed the girl. He'd given some longwinded explanation as to _why _and Alaric hadn't been paying attention because,_ fuck it, _he was a vampire.

Elijah had set up something like a shift system between himself and Caroline on who'd take turns to stay at her house and keep chloroforming her. _It's imperative, _was what he'd said.

Why? Alaric didn't give a flying fuck. He was a vampire. Bonnie wasn't big on vampires. Fuck it, chloroform the bitch, what was he supposed to care?

_I'm a vampire!_

He was itching to use some of his undead strength to capsize the couch, the crows and the semiconscious Damon. _Wake up you fucker, I'm a vampire! _

"What's with the slump, D-man? Bonnie again, or are we back to Elena?" He sipped his concoction out of the blender, tasting for that sobering alcoholic afterburn. _Perfection_. "Talk to me, man. Why are you naked? I don't want your junk on my couch like that." One of the crows landed on the counter and picked at an unused overripe guava. "And what's with the birds?" They'd get bird shit everywhere…

No response.

"Bonnie related, or Elena?"

"Bonnie."

_It lives!_ Alaric poured a champagne glass full of _brew _for himself then another one for the squatter and set it down on the coffee table as he sank into the loveseat. He'd been a vampire for just a little bit over a month and he was starting to realise that any problem could be solved with enough blood and enough alcohol. "What about Bonnie? Last I heard, she was still out of it, Sleeping Beauty style. She's back at her dads, so at least you know she's safe. Nobody's… going to… rape her or anything…" Except probably Elijah. The original was a case in point for why you should trust a person based on appearances.

A vampire in a suit – trustworthy, right? A vampire in a suit with a handkerchief in his pocket along with a half empty bottle of chloroform?

Damon rolled over onto his back. The crows squawked in protest for half a minute, then re-perched themselves. "Thanks for clearing that up."

"Well," Alaric shrugged. _Don't expect me to understand your lovesick, puppy dog shit. I'm a vampire hunter who got turned into a vampire. The prey became the predator and the predator the prey simultaneously. The snake is biting the tail. If you care to notice, I'm pretty fucked up myself. _"I don't get your problem really. Bonnie's young, even if she spends a year or two in a coma, when she gets out, she's what, twenty? I mean, it's not _seventeen, _but it's still good."

"She's not in a coma. She's up…" the vampire drawled. The _other_ vampire because they were both vampires now. Thanks to him. "She's up. But… I'm too ashamed to show my face."

Damon? Ashamed? That was possible?

"I went crazy and killed her grandmother. Again. I killed her grandmother _twice_."

Alaric swirled his glass to keep the blood from settling at the bottom."Both her grandmothers? Why would–"

"The same grandmother, twice."

_I don't fucking care! I'm a fucking vampire! I'm dead! Undead! Can we talk about how you turned me into a vampire? _"How?"

"Long story?"

"Zombie?" No one ever sounds intelligent saying the word zombie, but Alaric didn't give a shit. He was a vampire. _Fuck it._

"she was not a zombie, Alaric."

"Well, what then, because I don't understand." He finished off his drink and refilled his glass. Next time he'd add whiskey to the mix. Make the blood bags stretch a little longer. At a rate of five bags a day he'd be out by… 3.15 pm.

"You'd understand if it were zombies?"

He wouldn't care even if there were a thousand zombies running loose. "I don't know. Maybe. Was she a zombie, Bonnie's grandmother? Because I think everyonewould understand if you killed a zombie. I mean, you were defending yourself. Self-defence holds up against zombies."

"She wasn't a zombie_._" Damon pulled himself upright. "Abridged version – I died and went to witch heaven. And Bonnie was there and her grandmother–"

"Sheila?" _The one from the tomb story?_

"Yeah. The one from the tomb story."

"Right."

Damon raked the hair back from his face.

He had a beard now. Some stubble. Weird.

His skin looked whiter. His eyes, bluer. His hair, blacker. His teeth, sharper.

_Is the difference in my eyes? Or in him?_

_Him. _

_Definitely him._

"So I get to witch heaven, and it's fucking insane, "Damon started, with a flurry of hand gestures. A whole lot of hand gestures. And head shaking. And general agitation. "I'm talking about monkeys-in-dresses, cat-in-a-rocking-chair, ten-moons-in-the-sky insane. And all the witches that die get to go to witch heaven. This includes all the witches that I've killed. But before I get to that, there're some unicorns on a ranch and a half-man half-sheep cowboys–"

"Like a satyr?" Alaric's ears perked up. In all his time hunting down things that went bump in the night, he'd never allowed for unicorns and satyrs. If werewolves and witches and vampire exist, there should at least be unicorns. A stupid grin broke out on his face. _Unicorns…_

"More or less, but woollier. So I find out from him where Bonnie is. All I wanted to do at that point is find Bonnie. It was like if I'd been brainwashed or something. Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie. Then check this – I get hungry and start feeding on the unicorns."

Alaric nodded, paying attention. Of course Damon would feed on a unicorn. It's not like they're rare magical creatures. "Yeah…"

"So I kill about thirty, forty unicorns, and then when there's only one more remaining, I realise – holy shit, I'll need a ride. So I end up riding the last unicorn, until I come up to this… All along the way there's all kinds of crazy shit – dwarves, hobbits, talking squirrels – and I'm binge drinking on all this magic blood… I come up to this place. It a cemetery and it's filled with flowers and all the flowers represent life and death. In charge of the cemetery are these gargoyles who are really hot, but stupid as shit – they make Caroline look like a genius – And they lead me to a magic tree that grants wishes."

Alaric nodded his head and grinned in a way that he hoped translated into –_ I'm totally following this story. Magic tree, wishes… Go on._ Back when he was in college and had just gotten his first inhalation of marijuana, he'd met a magic tree too.

"So I wish for Magwyr to die. And then I wish for Bonnie to be the most badass witch in existence. Then I go find Bonnie… Meanwhile I kill, or _re_-killed in some cases, about a hundred witches. At one point I actually took a bath in their blood. Literally. There was a dry stream and I built up a dam with some stones and killed some witches to help fill it up. But anyhow I meet up with Bonnie, and somehow or the other I convince her to have sex with me. And it's crazy, in the middle of a forest, leaves in her hair, she's clawing the dirt. Ultra erotic, right?"

Alaric nodded. _She's clawing the dirt… _

"Then her grandmother comes out of the jungle with her "get the hence" attitude and blatant vampire discrimination, and this pisses me off. I just… _trip_. I fucking lose it, right in front of Bonnie. I'm laughing like some fucking Ted Bundy psycho and ripping peoples' throats out. Bonnie joins in with the rest of the witch mob chanting at this point to cast me out of witch heaven, but I don't want to go because I don't want to leave Bonnie for a second. That's all I have in my head: kill witches, Bonnie, kill witches, Bonnie. And I'm just killing and killing and killing. I'm ripping hearts out and ripping peoples' heads off. One girl - I rip her hands off and her feet off before actually killing her. I'm snarling like some fucking dangerous dog with rabies… then it comes down to me and Bonnie, and I just… I just give up and let her cast me out. And she's crying and… And… And… And I just want to stay here and die…"

_Not on my couch… _Alaric finished off his third glass of _History's Strongest_ _Homemade_ _Brew _and the one he'd poured for Damon as well. What had he expected? He'd hoped for some salient information as to where things stood with Klaus, the hybrid who had killed him and Jeremy, and strung up Caroline to bleed out and locked Tyler in a freezer, but oh well. _Damon_.

"Well," he got up and stretched. He _supposed_ it wouldn't derail his totally to stop by Bonnie's place and check the scene out. If she was up, which according to Damon, she was (Elijah must have run out of chloroform), she'd have some answers as to what in hell was going on…

Unless she was still getting her kicks by setting things on fire.

Funny, but as a human, he'd never been much concerned with being set on fire.

Investigate? Let sleeping vampires and sleeping witches and sleeping hybrids lie?

Honestly, he couldn't give a fuck, but he'd investigate. On last Scooby treat for the old boy. "I'll go check on Bonnie."

Damon flopped back down. One of his hands dropped and dangled off the edge of the couch. Five or six crows cawed, flapped and shifted to settle in his open hand, talons closing around his fingers. "There's no point… I can't look her in the eye after what I did. How I – She could barely tolerate me after the first time I killed her grandmother, and that hadn't even been my fault. That was _Stefan's_ fault but _I _took the heat for it. This time though, it was all me. Nobody loves serial killers, Alaric," he groaned. The fucking crows made more noise. "I'm damned. Dead and undead. I can live without my life. I can live without my soul. But I need this girl…"

Alaric pulled on his boots.

"Why do I need this girl?"

Alaric shrugged. "Okay, I'm just gonna…" _ leave you here. _

"Tell her I said I love her, and I'm sorry, and I love her, and I didn't mean to kill anybody. Tell her to keep in mind that they were already dead to begin with."

"Will do." Alaric locked the door behind him.

He'd done his very best to avoid Elena's House of Horrors, where a petite witch woman had kicked his ass six way to Sunday and made him cry like a baby. And now… _Fuck it. _He knocked quickly, impatiently and waited.

The door swung open and he was met with a very pale, very grungy, very unkempt version of Stefan.

"Alaric?" There was a scent of rot coming from the house, from the vampire, from the lawn… old blood.

He knew what old blood smelt like now. "Hey, Stefan." _Can this be any more awkward? _"How ya doing?" _And there, it's more awkward._

There was a hint of shock on the man's face, but it lasted only a fraction of a moment. "You're a vampire?"

"Yeah…"

"How?"

"Remember when Lucy killed me? Or Klaus via Lucy?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, I work up in the morgue, except when I say woke up I mean became a vampire."

"How?"

"Damon. He spiked my refrigerator with his blood… long story really."

"What's happening with Damon?"

"Ehhhh…" He'd never quite gotten around to breaking the bad news to Stefan about his brother's death. Which was just as well. _Dead_ just doesn't mean what it used to. "Yeah… He came back this morning." Came back… _from the __**dead!**_

"How is he? What's happening with Klaus? Where's Elena? And Bonnie? What happened to…"

Alaric stretched on the porch adjusting to how weird it was to need an invitation to get into a house where he'd spent months of his life. He'd left some important stuff in Elena's house. Like his car keys.

Funny thing about being a vampire though is that he didn't really need a car. It was strange… Damon never went anywhere on foot, he was always pulling some beast or the other out of his garage for a tune up and a drive around the block. Alaric couldn't fathom why.

He could outrun a car.

It would save him gas money.

A crow landed on the banister and cawed.

_Why am I here?_

He'd been intending to head over to Bonnie's and check out the situation. Hopefully run into Elijah and get some sensible details (details not including unicorns and talking trees) about what the fuck was going on and somehow, making a pit stop to the House of Horrors had worked its way into the agenda…

_Why?_

Come to think on it, he didn't particularly care for Stefan, even though Stefan was technically the _good_ one.

Alaric didn't see it. Stefan was good at _pretending_ to be the good one, but there was nothing so very _good_ about him. He _looked _like a good guy, but that was only because he put highlights in his hair and went around pretending to be a high school student. There was nothing catholic about his relationship with Elena. _Sure_, he was the good one, but hadn't anybody noticed that the guy had _moved_ to Mystic Falls for the sole reason of tapping the girl's ass? True love? Really?

How does a guy nicknamed the Ripper instantly have an entire town hanging on his every word. He had Elena, Bonnie and Caroline dangling on a string just itching to be at his beck and call, and for that matter anything in a skirt. How? Not to be gay but he didn't see the attraction. Stefan with his Machiavellian puppy dog eyes, was a master manipulator and that was about it.

Damon was a simple minded fellow. He'd do shit from time to time, but he had an _innocent_ way of doing it. Very childlike.

Like for instance, Alaric had not _wanted_ to be turned into a vampire, and Damon had broken a thousand and one laws by tricking him into drinking his blood, but he'd acted from a _good_ place. Buddies looked out for one another.

Damon never turned into a Ripper.

He'd kill people, sure. But he had _heart_.

_Sucks to be compelled though…_and that was the only sympathy he could muster. Alaric could only imagine what that could be like. He'd tired it out on a handful of people – the teller at the bank, at a KFC joint, his landlord… It _must_ suck to be compelled. "How are you doing, though?"

Stefan shrugged. "Let's see. Starving, trapped in here, compelled to wait for my girlfriend to come home so I can torture her… I'm doing okay. Elena's got cable, so it's not as bad you'd think. HBO. True Blood's pretty decent."

Another crow landed, then another. "_Caw_."

"You should really start taking some vervain," he really should.

Stefan gave a weak laugh. "Klaus wants to compel you, consider yourself compelled."

"Yeah…" Alaric stretched again. He liked that, stretching. Feeling his muscles stretch and contract on command… It made him feel powerful. Nice. "I just stopped to say _hey_. I hear Bonnie's back… so I'll ask her to see if there's anything she can do to help you out. _De_-compel you, or whatever."

"I'd appreciate it. How's Elena?"

"Safe."

"Where is she?"

"Like I'd tell you," he turned to leave.

"Wait!"

_I don't want to. _Looking at Stefan cooped up in Elena's did as much for him as plucking eyelashes. In fact, he'd rather get waxed than stay a single minute longer in the stiflingly morbid languor of the place. "Yeah?"

"Talk to me," Stefan drew himself up to the doorframe, as far as Klaus' compulsion would allow. "What about Jeremy?"

"Vampire too. He's staying with Matt. He still needs a ring."

"And Caroline? Tyler? They're okay?"

Geez, the guy really hadn't had a visitor, had he? He could understand why Elena would lay low… But Caroline at least could have swung by with a blood bag for the dude. "Everybody's fine." He'd always known a thing or two about hunger, but now that he was a vampire, he was a master of the topic. "What can I pick up for you? A couple chickens? Rabbit?"

"Deer?"

Where the fuck does one find live deer in Mystic Falls? "How 'bout a Rottweiler?" The guy across the road from his apartment kept a Rottweiler. Bred for show competitions, as big as a small bear… it should hold Stefan, he figured, for at least a couple of days until Bonnie and/or Damon figured out a way to undo the compulsion. "I have to give it to you though, it's been a month and a half, you're holding out pretty well. You kept strong."

Stefan shrugged. "Actually, Klaus stopped by some weeks ago. He brought some people and we had something of a dinner party."

Alaric nodded. He'd heard about that from Caroline. Bodies on the lawn, strung up on the electricity wires… "Anyway… I'm a vampire. Can't judge you. I've killed at least nineteen people already. Totally by accident, but what–"

"–were you supposed to do?" Damon finished the sentence, appearing out of nowhere in the doorway. At least he wasn't naked; Alaric had had enough with Damon popping out of the air without clothes on. This version was wearing one of his jeans (black) and one of his tees (black). Not that he enjoyed other people wearing his clothes, but he was grateful. He could deal with a whole lot of the crazy inherent in living in Mystic Falls, but he shouldn't have to deal with naked people. Unless it was naked female people. He'd allow for Caroline or Bonnie to run about naked, pop up in his apartment naked whenever they liked, parade through the streets naked if that was what they were into… but Damon should wear clothes. Always.

The two brothers stared each other down for a long moment before Damon smirked and resumed his natural asshole-_ish_ attitude. "Hello, brother."

"How'd you make it without a ring?" Alaric asked, burning with curiosity on the inside, but playing it cool. Klaus had been ever so kind and left one for him, and he'd been looking forward to flaunting it a bit.

Damon pointed to the crows. "Figure it out. Run along, Al. I've got some catching up to do with my baby bro."

Did he care? Alaric nodded. "Klaus compelled him to stay in the house and kill Elena."

"Eh?" he could _hear _the smirk. It would be something to look inside Damon's brain and see exactly how it worked. How he could go from "crying wimp" to "badass" so easily…

"_That's_ new," Damon continued to his brother. "How'd you feel about taking in a guest? There used to be a boarding house around here but some witch burnt it to the ground… I'm good for the rent." Damon pushed pass Stefan and entered the Horror House.

Once upon a time, Alaric would have cared. Two months ago, he would have cared. "I'm going go to hit up a blood bank. I'll check in on you guys… at some point."


	32. On your marks, get set

"Ready to come out? Face the world?" Caroline's perfectly yellow, perfectly bouncy head of curls rounded the corner. "Feeling better?"

"Yes," Bonnie lied. She wasn't. "Are the crows gone, though?" she asked hopefully. She hadn't ventured out of her house for days. She'd reached as far as the front door but the hundred or so crows on the banister had been enough to deter her.

Caroline frowned and smiled at the same time – a trick she'd become very good at. Useful for those 'Sad that your boyfriend's a vampire now, but good to see that your still alive' situations. "So Jeremy wanted to know if you'd meet him at the Grille later." Which didn't answer Bonnie's question one way or the other so she assumed that yes, the crows were still there.

"Uhh…" she groaned and threw herself back into the tumble of blankets and feather soft pillows. She almost missed being on the other side.

"Come on," Caroline plopped down on the side of the bed, "He really needs that ring, and I know helping us vamps out is not your style but… he's your boyfriend, gotta count for something."

"How the hell, Caroline?" she groaned. "How does one _wind_ _up _with a vampire boyfriend? You remember how this entire Jeremy situation started? It was to get _away_ from the supernatural bullshit and be normal. Now I'm supposed to make a magic ring so my boyfriend doesn't turn to ash in the sunlight? How the hell?"

Caroline shook her head, her golden pretty porcelain head. "It's a good thing I think, because the alternative was pure death. Me and Tyler survived because of that spell you did, the whole _guardians of Mystic Falls thing, _but Jeremy would have flat out died."

_Why are we even talking about Jeremy?_ "I have to move…"

"You can't move, Bonnie. A – it costs more than you think, and B… well, really, there's just the financial aspect… And then, me. Elena. You can't leave us. Your dad…"

"Fine," she pulled a pillow over her face. "Fine. No moving to Russia."

"A lot of work in the sex trade industry over there, I hear."

"It'll help with the rent."

"Then there's Damon."

Bonnie flinched at the sound of the name. Just the first syllable, and she'd gone plank stiff. "What about Damon?"

"He popped up at Alaric's."

"Alaric… the vampire hunter who got turned into a vampire." It sounded even less real out loud.

"Yeah… He was contaminating Alaric's liquor supply with his blood. And Jeremy somehow was drinking from Alaric's stash…"

"And now they're both vampires." Of course, they were vampires. _Of course._

"Yup."

Her head sagged. "And you too. Is Damon going to turn everybody I care about into a vampire? I half expect to see my dad chumping down on the mailman."

"Mm, mailman." Caroline licked her lips. "We do love a good mailman in the morning to start the day right."

"Come on," Bonnie ruffled her friend's hair playfully. "I didn't mean that. It's just… dammit, I so totally completely hate Damon!"

Caroline pulled her legs up underneath her, and bounced, perky as hell, "Gimme the deets my peeps. What happened? The last thing I know is that you got this split personality problem with this super horny witch and you were sucking on Damon like all the time. Then he goes to England for the sword. You bleed Stefan dry, knock him out, burn the boarding house down and disappear. Then you get brought back here by some Brit right as rain and Damon comes back all 'He Walks with Darkness'. _Whassup with dat? _ And _who _was the Brit? He was super hot, like Klaus times ten, and you were _covered_ in blood, like _drenched_, and I was like – oo, you're entirely suspicious – but then, he was so ultra hot I was like – _what's his name?_ He said he'd pay me a hundred dollars to lick the blood off you, which I thought was gross, but the way he said it–_"_

Right. "Ponytail?"

"Didn't notice. He just popped up for a second. I was distracted by the blood," she gave her trademark, airhead giggle, "_Vampire, _remember?"

"Tweed suit?"

"Didn't notice."

"What _did_ you notice?"

"Just the accent, really. The – '_hello love' –_ super hot."

Bonnie sighed, not really feeling to be a killjoy bubble burster… "Remember getting your throat slit for Lucy's voodoo spell? Yeah that was to summon _him_. He's a demon. Jaxxon."

"Jaxxon?"

"Jaxxon."

"Uhh…." Caroline through herself back next to Bonnie. "Why are all the hot guys evil?"

"What happened to Tyler?"

"After he thawed out, you mean?"

"…Yeah."

"Well, Klaus killed his mom… so he had… orphan business to see to, I guess. Haven't seen him since… Didn't even get an invitation to the funeral."

"It was probably a closed-casket thing."

"That would so totally suck. I mean, what's the benefit of dying young if you wind up in a closed casket anyway? By the way, my mom's dead too," and she flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I was kinda bummed about it, but I'm a vampire, she was human. She was always going to die, so I'm trying to look at it in a practical way."

Bonnie sighed. She wished she was back in Witch country, holding hands in a guidance circle.

Klaus. She still had to kill Klaus.

_By the way, my mom's dead too. _Nobody should have to say that. "What's up with Elena?"

"Yeah… Let's talk about Damon instead," the vampire squared on her, excited like if her mother hadn't been murdered by a psychotic hybrid. "I want details. What happened? Sex? Did sex happen? You let Damon sign your V-card? Gave him a taste of the ol' cherry ice-cream?"

"What?" Some spit went down her windpipe.

"You let him _deflower your rose garden?"_

"Caroline!"

"You gave him a sample of Bonnie Butterscotch?"

She swung a pillow. "Caroline!"

"Come on! Details – Tongue fuck? Finger fuck? Standing up? Sitting down? Missionary? Doggy? Upside down cow-girl? Soixante-neuf Euro style?"

"The first four?"

Caroline froze in space and time. Her hair stopped, her breathing stopped, the sound at the tip of her tongue stopped. Like a whisper "What?"

Be brave, she commanded herself. If there was anybody in the world she could talk to about having sex with Damon, it would be Caroline. For a multitude of reasons. "First time in a bathroom–"

"_First_ time?" Caroline's eyes widened. "How many times did you?"

"Three? Or four depending on how you count it–"

"By the total number of orgasms, Bonnie! How many times? How many–"

"Six?" She really wasn't sure. "Seven?" She hadn't been keeping track. "You know how it is with Damon when he–"

"Noooo!" Caroline covered her ears and screamed. "My God! Bonnie! It's Damon! What did you do?"

"It was in Klaus' apartment and–"

"Oh. My. _God_. You did a Damon-Klaus Sandwich. A _man_wich. Eww… And totally hot at the same time. Who's better? Damon? Klaus? Damon. Damon, right?"

"Didn't do a threesome, Caroline."

"Damon's not the sharing type… "

"It was all end-of-the-world dramatics." Everything with Damon was dramatic. And traumatic. "Totally meaningless. Everything's going to go back to normal in a couple of days."

Caroline slumped. "Used and abused on the Damon wheel… I know how it feels. Just a bed-warmer on his grand quest for the fair Elena. Or the not so fair, kinda swarthy Elena. You know what I mean."

Bonnie did.

She'd been coming up with a plan. Whatever happened in Witchy Tree-Hugger Land was going to _stay_ right fucking there. Technically – biologically – speaking, she was still a fucking virgin. Fantasy mind-fucks and interdimensional magic-realm fucks didn't count. Damon had killed all the witnesses, anyway. She'd come clean to Caroline, but Caroline didn't matter. She wouldn't tell a soul. The two of them could probably form a support group or something. The 'If You've Spread Your Legs For Damon And Gotten Jilted In Favour Of Elena' support group. Totally anonymous.

Walk with a brown bag to put over your face. Meetings Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays – basically every day of the week to accommodate the numbers. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Special hotline available in case you get the urge to save face via suicide.

"What happened?" Caroline continued. "Were you drunk?"

_Drunk on Damon. _"Kinda. When you have Klaus breathing down your neck, you grab at anything."

"And what happened after?"

"_This _is after."

"Whoa… No closure whatsoever?" then she nodded, like if some kind of sage wisdom had floated down to her. "That's why the crows are outside, and why he was all holed up at Alaric's… Aww… This is cute."

"What's cute?"

"The two of you! This prolonged infatuation phase. He's–"

"Save it, Caroline. Don't try to sell me Damon. You should know better."

"I'm not selling anything you didn't already buy!" she flipped her hair over her shoulder again.

_Advice from Cosmo in 5, 4, 3, 2… _

"You totally have to make a play."

"Make a play?" She flicked some dirt out from under her fingernails, which reminded her that maybe she should bathe. According to how the rest of the day went, how the mood struck her.

Caroline's face was stern, which was rare. "Make a move! You're actually in the lead now, but you have to step up your game or you'll _lose_."

How many days had it been since she'd had a bath? Three perhaps. There was something unsettling in taking off her clothes with the crows, (Damon) right outside. Of course, she could shower _in _herclothes, but that would not be right. "What lead? What game?"

"The _Beat_ _Elena_ game."

"I don't play that, Caroline. I'm not a huge fan of those "_We're friends but I secretly envy you your life_" kinda games." _Elena is always 'it', anyway._

"Oh come on." The girl pouted. "It's not one of those."

"It's not?"

"It's more like a '_I deserve a badass boyfriend too, so back to fuck off my man, bitch'_ kinda game."

"Problem with that is… he's not my _man, _Caroline. He's been waving the Elena flag since he moved into town. Things got a little confused or whatever," she shrugged and tried to sniff herself. Three days without a bath would carry a scent, she thought. Except it was winter, and she'd read that people in Europe in the olden, golden days could go a week without a scrub. She didn't smell, though. "Mistakes happened, Caroline. What's done is done. I have to get back to normal. I'd have to be drunk and brain-dead to actually try to start some kind of relationship with Damon just because we fake-hooked up."

"What do you mean fake?"

She didn't know how she meant it. How does one explain astral plains of existence to Caroline? "Complicated."

"How complicated?"

"Remember when I was practising that dream spell? And I came into your dream and helped you study for that biology test?"

"And I got a B… minus. Thanks."

"Well it was something like that."

"You went into Damon's dream and had sex with him."

If only it was as simple as that. There would be nothing to explain away. "Something like, except it was a _community_ _dream. _The hundred dead ancestors, Grams, everybody. And Damon somehow ended up there, and we did _the do_, and then he went all bloodlust homicidal and killed everybody. He killed my dead grams, Caroline, like five seconds after we did it. He killed Grams _twice_."

Lines started to appear around Caroline eyes, as she struggled to follow. "What was Grams doing there, watching?"

"Kinda. And she was shouting and screaming and trying to do a spell on him… and… and I'm looking at _her_ while Damon's _in_ me, and it all… went to hell from there…"

"But you kinda like him." That was Caroline's conclusion.

"No."

"Come on! Bonnie! You've been saving it up since kindergarten, and magic realm or no magic realm, you wouldn't _just do it _if you didn't have some kinda… _affection _for him."

"Affection?" Bonnie scoffed. The only time she ever used that word was when she was signing Christmas and Easter cards to relatives whose face she had forgotten. _With much affection, Bonnie. _Damon wasn't like that. Her thing with Damon was _at_ _least_ more real than that. "Affection for Damon? Please. He's on my to-kill list with Klaus. He's evil, Caroline, regardless of what he says. We're talking about the vampire who compelled you the day after he showed up in town. The vampire who broke Jeremy's neck. And Alaric's. And he tried to kill me when I didn't open the tomb. Which part of that should I have affection for? _And," _more than anything else, "_And_ this is the same "live–and-die-for-Elena" Damon. The "let's-sacrifice-Bonnie-to-save-Elena" Damon. If they still had bonfires in Mystic Falls he'd tie me to the stake himself, just to be the crying shoulder for Elena."

"Oohh… tied to a stake… You should write that down. Bedroom ideas…"

It actually would be kind of… _exciting_… being tied up and doing it with Damon, but that was beside the point. "Caroline… I bet you that right now that in this very moment he's over at Elena's."

Caroline's eyes looked away, a subconscious frown flickered over her face. "That's just because you burnt his house down. He has nowhere else to go. And besides, Elena's not there. Stefan's compelled to kill her, so she's hiding out at the lake house with Matt."

Of course. One thing about Caroline, she was good at summarisations. _Concise_. Anybody else would have taken half a day to get all that across.

"He's living with Elena." Of course. Three days later and he was living with her. _Bitch_. Both of them.

"What if I can prove for a fact that he's super into you?"

"He was super _in_ me, Caroline."

"No need to be crude. Word from Alaric is that our dear friend Damon is veritably inconsolable."

As if. "Inconsolable? He's in her house! He killed my grandmother. Again!"

"Doesn't count."

"You can't say–"

"Killing dead people doesn't count. Throw that out the window. If he's into you, and you're into him, why not?"

"Me and Damon would be like Red Riding Hood and the wolf hooking up." Or worse, because she was smarter than Red Riding Hood. And she had magic. She really, really ought to know better; infinite shame and ignominy upon her if she didn't.

Caroline beamed, "Kinky. You see yourself going full throttle in the costume department? Because I have a cape I can lend you."

"Can you be serious?"

"Seriously, why not? Let's be realistic. Pros and Cons. I'll go first. Pro – he's uber-hot."

"Con – he's a vampire."

"Pro – 5 star sex."

"Con – he had sex with everybody else in Mystic Falls except Elena who's on his _to_ _do _list."

"Pro – sense of humour."

"Con – evil."

"Pro – will be _that _good looking for all time. Permanent eye-candy."

"Con – I'll look like a cougar when I get older. Like Matt's mom."

"Super eww. Pro – you won't have to get older. He'd change you."

"Con – he'd change me. I don't want to be a vampire. No offense, and it's not even about the blood drinking. If I die and I turn, that's cool, but I don't want to be killed."

Caroline paused, seeming for a moment to be thoughtful, then, "Pro – 5 star sex."

"You said that already."

"Well, I don't know why you two can't have a physical thing even if you don't heart each other. He can go on Elena-lusting. You can keep making smoochy-face with Elena's kid brother, and every now and again, the two of you can _accidentally_ go in to the same restroom stall and _accidentally_ have sex. Oh, I got one! Pro – he's super into you and is totally hot and will ROCK YOUR WORLD!"

"Con – he's super, _super _into ELENA. Obsessed! And I _refuse _to play back up."

"Then don't!"

"I'm not!"

"No! What you're doing is giving up. Imagine you're in fifthteenth century England and you have to hook up with Mr Darcy or get evicted."

_Shoot me now…_ "That wasn't fifteenth century."

"Whenever. Point is Damon's your Mr Darcy, and Elena is Bingley's annoying sister. We're at the part of the movie where you have to go trekking through the mud."

"What?"

"Time to get dirty. Time for the catfight. Anything goes. Hair-pulling. Eye-gouging. Back-stabbing. Flat out murder…"

"Murder. You want me to kill Elena. Are you serious?"

"Not _kill_ kill. Just–"

"Just what?"

"Maim?"

The sun was setting, and if she really was going to spell a ring for Jeremy, she'd have to get started on it pretty soon. And it would be fun to go to the Grille. Karaoke night was always easy fun. She still had that new pair of jeans she'd bought so long ago… She'd wear that with the cashmere… No, the white tube… "Can we not talk about this anymore?" Her head hurt.

"What, Pride and Prejudice?"

"Damon. Can we not talk about _him_?" She made the pronoun resonate. _Him. _

"I don't see how. You're my number 1 BFF, and you're hot for the local bad boy… who's a homicidal vampire and incidentally my maker in an indirect way… who I also slept with… Of course we have to talk about it."

"Fine. You do the talking." She pulled out her grimoire from under her pillow. After letting Mags rearrange her brain, she really didn't need to check with it. She could bring a lot of spells to mind easily, but feeling the old leather binding was soothing, somehow. "What do you have to add? Say your piece"

"Okay… for instance, when Alaric called, I kinda told him to tell Damon that you'd be at the Grille tonight…"

Fuck. "Caroline!"

"What? You have to go anyway to give Jeremy his day-ring. Damon needs a new one too, by the way, so you can make one for him…propose…"

"I'm only making one for Jeremy! Damon can kiss my ass! Or get Elena to make one!"

"Ooh?" Caroline singsonged. "Jealous? Damon and Bonnie sitting in a tree, K-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes–"

Bonnie levelled an aneurysm at the girl before she could finish. Nothing too potent. Just a little zap.

"Bonnie!"

"Caroline!"

"Witch bitch!"

"Vampire bitch!"

"Hottest vampire bitch _ever, _and you're the hottest witch bitch ever. Say it - I'm the hottest witch bitch ever!"


	33. Kings of Mystic Falls

**AN**: **If you haven't seen this song yet youtube it. Call your girlfriend, by robyn.**

"Don't do it, Damon!" Alaric grabbed at his sleeve. "I know for a fact that you are not drunk enough to do this."

He wasn't. "I'm doing it."

"Damon, please! Just go over and say _hey_."

"This is how _I _say hey. I need to do this!" he took another step breaking out of his friend's grip. Maybe he didn't need to, but he wanted to. It would be fun. "You said you wanted me to stop slumming around like the lord of the dead. Go out and do something fun, you said. Go meet up with Bonnie, you said. Tell her how you feel, you said."

"Damon, this is going to destroy lives…" Alaric called from behind him, his voice blending in with the crowd's hushed mutterings.

Matt stopped him before he could climb the stairs. "You sure you want to do this, man?"

"Did I _not _put my name on the roster?"

"I thought it was a joke." The boy braced him at the shoulders. "Dude, think about this."

"You know how I feel about people calling me dude." Damon shrugged the jock off, "And I'm a hundred and seventy years old – I stopped thinking a long time ago." He ambled up the stairs as the lights dimmed in the Grille.

Matt shuffled over. "Your funeral," he whispered as he plugged the mike in. "And now, our _final _final contestant. Damon Salvatore, doing Call Your Girlfriend." He looked down at the card in his hand, "Whoops– Call Your _Boy_friend. He's changing it up a bit…" he chuckled, nervously. "Put your hands together, this ought to be… something."

Damon took the mike. The music cued up… _I'm too old to be doing this_. _So what? _

He took a deep breath in, cleared his throat. _1, 2, 1, 2, 3,_

"Call your boyfriend  
>It's time you had the talk<br>Give your reasons  
>Say it's not his fault<br>But you just found somebody new"

_Tricky part now: Robot walk, robot walk, then spin. Remember to spin. Big hand loops, hammer fist pound, spin…_

"Tell him not to get upset, second-guessing everything you said and done  
>And then when he gets upset tell him how you never mean to hurt no one<br>Then you tell him that the only way his heart will mend is when he learns to love again  
>And it won't make sense right now but you're still his friend<br>And then you let him down easy"

_Stand, choppy 90s dance, head grab, hair pull over…_

"Call your boyfriend  
>It's time you had the talk<br>Give your reasons  
>Say it's not his fault<br>But you just met somebody new"

_Two back steps, backroll, sexy flop… "_Don't you tell him how I give you something that you never even knew you missed"  
><em>Log roll, chest fondle… "<em>Don't you even try and explain how it's so different when we kiss"  
><em>Stand…<em> "You tell him that the only way his heart will mend is when he learns to love again"  
><em>Jerky hand wave… "<em>And it won't make sense right now but you're still his friend"  
><em>aerobic pump… "<em>And then you let him down easy"

_Drunk Madonna dancing… _

"Call your boyfriend  
>It's time you had the talk<br>Give your reasons  
>Say it's not his fault<br>But you just met somebody new  
>And now it's gonna be me and you"<p>

_Bounce…_

_Crazy dance, crazy dance…_

_Psychedelic hands…_

_Crump it…_

_Butterfly spiral hands…_

"And you tell him that the only way his heart will mend is when he learns to love again  
>And it won't make sense right now but you're still his friend<br>And then you let him down easy"

_Down on your knees_

"Call your boyfriend  
>It's time you had the talk<br>Give your reasons  
>Say it's not his fault"<p>

_Fist bump, fist bump… and remember to spin!_

"Call your boyfriend  
>It's time you had the talk<br>Give your reasons  
>Say it's not his fault<br>But you just met somebody new"

_Nose wipe…_

"What?" he took the beer from Alaric and flipped the crown, talking above the noise of the crowd cheering for him. He gave them another wave, and flashed a quick smile as he returned to his seat. Let it not be said that Damon Salvatore hogged the spotlight. "I sang that like a pro."

"I'm not saying you can't sing."

"You'd be lying if you did. I danced the shit out of it too."

"Exactly, and you won your little prize–"

"Right–" Damon reached into the back pocket of his jeans and retrieved the envelope of cash. "Pay your rent or something."

Alaric stared at the envelope for a moment, then back up at Damon. "Yeah… About that…"

"You compelled the landlord?"

"Yeah."

"That's Classic Damon. You've grown well, my pupil, but still," he nudged the envelope again. "Take it, pay for my beer."

"You have a tab."

"Yeah, but a girl likes to feel special every now and then, Al." His eyes swept the crowd, spotting the table in the corner with Caroline, Tyler, Elena… "Where's Bonnie?"

"She left while you were singing Sex on Fire."

"She loves Kings of Leon."

Alaric snorted. "But does she want you to get up on stage in front of God and everybody and say that her sex is on fire? Questions like these are what you have to ask yourself _before_ you decide to do karaoke."

Damon swallowed a mouthful of ice cold Bud. Bonnie was gone. Jeremy was gone too. Not good. Primeval instinct was telling him to go find the boy and rip his heart out once and for all, but he'd give this 'decency' thing a little bit more time. Bonnie wanted a non-murderer, he'd try easing up on the murder. He'd do that for her. He'd pretend. Wasn't that part of their deal that he'd put his best foot forward and at least _act_ as if he cared about other existing people? He swigged the beer around, wished it was blood and took another hard swallow. "That song was harder than I looked."

"Sex on Fire?"

"No, Call Your Girlfriend. It's just… crazy."

"It's catchy, though"

"Yeah."

The two of them lingered, taking in the music, watching the youth of Mystic Falls parade pass them. A girl in half a skirt and a mini tube top gave him a wink and a smile. He tipped his beer at her and gave her a sad shake of the head. "Remember when my life was rated mature audiences only? Now it's some creepy PG-13 thing. Even Barney gets more sex than I do."

"Barney Rubble, HIMYM Barney, or Purple Dinosaur Barney?"

"Purple dinosaur Barney," he groaned, reading the label to see exactly how much of his so called beer was actually alcohol.

"From who? He always seemed kinda… _celibate_ to me."

Of the legions of people he'd met in his existence, Alaric is the only person who'd follow-up on that. "From the plushie freaks? I haven't thought it through as yet, but you get my meaning."

"Actually," Alaric straightened. "I _don't_ want to get your meaning. I still have to see Bonnie in the classroom every day. I'm still her teacher. And she's still seventeen… So I don't want any details whatsoever on how she features into your sex life."

"Her sex really is on fire, Al."

"I don't–"

"Like sticking your dick into a wet, tight… furnace."

"Right–"

"Alaric… Al-man…" he gave the man's shoulder a squeeze. "You have to realise something if you want to make this work. I've been a vampire for most my life. And I can tell you, assuredly, that besides blood and sex, there's not a whole lot going on with us. Especially when we start combining the two? It's practically one big R-rated rabbit hole. Stefan actually goes down a real rabbit hole, but for us the R stands for raunchy. Get used to it."

"Maybe you're _too _usedto it."

"Excuse me?" He raised an eyebrow. Some random day, he'd break Alaric's neck again and make a little game out of it. First person to kill the other one ten times wins… Wins the right to be the Head Vampire in Charge. He'd win of course, but all rulers need challengers every now or then.

Alaric wriggled in his seat, that way he did when he _knew _he was going to say something annoying. "I'm saying you're too used to it. This layer of… of sexy blood musk…"

"Sexy blood musk?"

"Sexy blood musk," Alaric confirmed. "That'll work like honey for half… maybe eighty to ninety percent of all the women in this place. But people like Bonnie are allergic to it. You need to–"

Damon's head hit the table with a solid thunk.

"I'm just saying sometimes less is more. Instead of karaoke, maybe try a phone call. Walking over and saying hi."

"I'm not drunk enough for this conversation. Or gay enough."

"Because karaoke at the Grille isn't gay at all, right?" Alaric snorted. "You're two days away from holding a boombox outside her window."

It wasn't too hard to track her down. The dozen crows he had on 24/7 lookout weren't for nothing. She was right there smack down on the top step of her porch… with Jeremy.

Yes, he'd gotten up on stage and told her to call her boyfriend and have a sitdown, but he hadn't _actually_ meant it. Yes, he did feel a certain regret for crushing Jeremy's teenage heart and possibly turning the kid into a love-scared cynic for all his days thereafter, but he didn't _actually_ care.

"I've got stuff to sort out," she was saying.

"Well, let's sort it out, Bonnie. You just need to free yourself from Damon. Get him out of your head, and everything can go back to how it–"

"Sorry, Jere," he flickered over to the wicker rocking chair, popping up behind the two of them.

Bonnie actually jumped. Then teleported.

No matter. His business was actually with the boy. "As much as I like you, and I really do, this triangle isn't going to cut it for me. We're voting you off the island."

"Damon, you–"

He cut him off. "You're a better guy than me, Jere. You'd never intentionally go after someone else's girl, and I respect you for that. I know how it feels to have the rug pulled out from under you. You meals don't taste the same. As a vampire, you might feel the urge to kill a large number of people and consume copious amounts of blood. Deal with it however you like. But… I've already… planted my flag on her virgin territory… if you see what I'm trying to get at, and I _will_ prosecute you for trespassing."

That sounded worse out loud than it had in his head. It even made _him _feel uncomfortable. His eye caught on the single daywalking ring on the banister. He supposed he could allow that much… A trinket from the girl he'd never so much as touch again.

Poor Jeremy, the sad bastard. Confused as fuck. "She teleports now," he tried to explain.

"Teleports?"

"Yeah. Spell she picked up while we were on vacay. The first time she did it was when she left Mystic Falls that time. She just popped out of nothing right in front of me and–"

"What about my sister?"

"Elena?"

"Yeah."

"One minute you're sniffing after her, the next–"

The boy's neck went snap much the way it when he'd been human. He looked down at the corpse with pity.

"Give the lad a chance, won't you?" A girl, five or six, appeared, right there on the rocking chair where he'd been sitting a second before. Peanut butter and jelly all over her hands, frosty blond hair, frock dress, white stockings, pigtails, two missing front teeth, black eyes with no white in them… The rocking chair creaked as it moved. "He's cute. Not as cute as you, but still…"

A chill went down his spine. A literal chill, which was saying something because vampires _never_ get _chilled_. "Jaxxon?"

"Say my name."

"What do you want?"

"Just to say hi. And give you some pointers. You're not making any progress whatsoever on the Bonnie Frontier and I thought we could brainstorm so how 'bout it?"

"Must I?"

"I could put the collar back around your neck. Did you forget about that? Yeah, that was real too."

_The things I do. _The light in her bedroom flicked off. "Okay, five minutes."


	34. We're so jaded

**AN: Half Damon introspection in the beginning, then conversation from nobodies POV in particular. Wrapping it up soon. Hope everybody that reached this point had a fun time. Thanks**

_Blasé_.

_Remember. Blasé._

JAxxon had said so. Alaric had said so…

As if he needed some newbie vampire to coach him. He was rounding on two hundred years. He didn't need advice from some history buff who used to be human five minutes ago.

Why should he need advice at all? He wasn't confused about anything. He was a vampire. He drank blood. He was in love with a witch. Wasn't that simple? Dragons hoard gold. Irish people wear green. And vampires fall head over heels in love with the one human that's immune to them. Ever since Mr Dracula got things going way back when in Transylvania.

If he were human, he'd probably give Bonnie the once-over, a twice-over and move on. Humans were good at moving on. They excelled at it. Vampires? Not so much. They're the worst at rejection. They can't even fucking comprehend it. Or maybe that's just him.

So what if the sight of him stimulated her gag reflex? They'd get over it. He'd tie her up, put steel bars on the doors, board up the windows, shackle her to the floor, attach a ball and chain for good measure and cut out her tongue just to be safe from all the spell chanting.

How was that a bad plan? He'd have his Bonnie. He'd feed on her, have sex with her, slip into her mind every now and then and watch her dreams… That was all a vampire really needed.

He didn't need popcorn and a movie. He didn't need Valentine's Day. He didn't need to remember birthdays or have anniversaries. He didn't need to have a neat, expensive wedding ceremony with a priest acting all divine. He didn't need an album filled with photos of picnics and beach excursions. He didn't need to be added on Facebook. He didn't need someone to make breakfast for him in the morning and iron his shirts.

He only needed to own that one thing… to win that one jackpot. To have one single person to claim as his own and to have that person lay claim to him in turn to the exclusion of all others. He only needed to be owned. To have some one single person acknowledge his existence. To have one single person weigh him, measure his summation and find him worthy of their time and their love.

His real, physical heart was dead and useless, but he was willing to give his metaphorical, imaginary, pseudo-heart away.

Bonnie…

He couldn't pull the wool too far over her eyes. She'd seen him. Not the Varvatos wearing version, but _him _him. The real blood drinking beast that slithered underneath the skin. She'd peered under his surface and glimpsed the nightmare of what he was. And there'd be no sweet-talking that away. You can't kill a girl's grandmother twice and expect her to be cool with it. Not in the real world. In his world, maybe. In his world, shit like that would fly. No problem. But guess to fuck what – the population count of his dark psychotic realm tallied in at 1. The loneliest fucking number ever.

Not that he was lonely, _per se_. He was simply… tired of it all. If the purpose of his existence, of his century and seventy years hadn't been to meet this one Bonnie Bennett and love her completely to the best of his power, then he could as well as die. In the next couple of years if he kept himself safe, there'd be another Katherine clone surely. A lazy part of him was suggesting – forget the witch, and just wait it out for the next one, Stacy, or whatever her name might be – but the majority of his conscious mind was just one big '_fuck_ _it_.'

More than lonely, he was tired. Tired of trying to be human. Tired of constantly reminding himself to keep up the pretence.

_Buy a bed to sleep in. _

_Blood bags instead of jugulars. _

_Don't walk on the roof, it'll freak them out. _

_People don't like it when you stream their thoughts. _

Blah, blah, blah. Pretend, pretend, pretend. Everything was pretend. Pretend family. Pretend friends. Pretend roof over his bedroom – the blue tarpaulin Alaric had used to keep the remnants of his personal possessions dry.

Not that he was severely opposed to it. Only the motivation had to be right. He'd wear a leash and pretend to be a Border Collie if the motivation was right… and recently all his motivations seemed to be centred around Bonnie. Some unholy, centrifugal force was making his world revolve around her.

If Bonnie wasn't there to see it, then it wasn't worth the effort getting out of bed. No point in putting on underwear if Bonnie wasn't going to take them off. No point in opening his eyes if he couldn't just stare at her. No point in breathing if he couldn't smell her. No point in living if he wasn't going to share that life with Bonnie.

He could always change her against her will. That'd be the smart way to go. She'd forgive him in a century or two and they'd sort out all their other issues… Except in that one century or two where they'd be on opposite sides of the world. Yeah… he'd most likely just go sun-tanning sans day-ring. And what would be the point of that? She'd end up all alone _and_ a vampire. Best he just leave her alone from the get-go, right? Unselfish, right? They were always prattling on about him being selfish…

He rolled over on the couch, doing his best to ignore Elena and Stefan and the sound of their kissing coming from the kitchen. He should move. Best if he just die, really.

Except he'd tried death already. Twice.

"So…" Damon chugged down the last of his milky, caffeinated drink, licking the froth from his lips and sparing a wink for the waitress of the newly opened roadside café. _Trelawney's_. "Just to be clear… Repeat it back to me."

The man opposite him, as straight-laced an Ivy-leaguer as he could find, leaned forward and straightened his collar. He was taking the compulsion rather well, starting to adjust to it and was just beginning to recover a little in way of facial expression. "My purpose is to become Bonnie's best friend."

"Check. And?"

"And I protect her from any and all dangers."

"Including…"

"Including werewolves, hybrids, witches, and other vampires."

Damon smiled broadly at the newbie vampire, a quick and recent creation of his. "Exactly. Any questions?"

"Just a few," the boy leant over the counter again, "If at any point there _is_ any trouble–"

"You'll get in contact with me and I'll deal with it."

"And Bonnie's a witch, right?"

The smile froze on his face. "Don't see the relevance… Jakey boy."

"No, well," Jake shrugged. "If she's this badass witch… she's totally going to know that I'm a vampire. What's stopping her from setting me on fire?"

Nothing really. That's why he had back-ups. There was Scott, and Mark, and Riley, and Paul, and Steven Irons Jr.… "How's she going to know you're a vampire? Just don't touch her."

"What if I do?"

"If you do what?"

"Touch her."

Kids say the darnest things. _Touch her? _ What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Touch her where? With what? His imagination had always been stellar. "Just don't. It's easy, Jake. You keep your hands in your pockets and keep a ten foot distance between you and her at all times."

"Well, duh. That's the plan, but what if I touch her by accident. I mean, we go to school together. I have math and lit with her every single day. Say she slips and falls into me, know what I mean? _Accident_."

"How the fuck do you not hear me when I tell you over and over again that you _do_ _not_ _fucking_ _touch_ _her_?" Damon kept himself from going ape-shit in the public café. In a blur, he broke the boy's neck, relocated to the restroom where he proceeded to rip the boy's heart out and clog a toilet with it, then returned to his seat where Alaric was perusing the pastry menu like nobody's business.

"Was that called for?"

"Friend of yours?" He flashed some fang at Alaric and hissed.

Unaffected, Alaric shrugged. "His mom does the PTA thing. She's nice."

"Gee, Al. You should have told me. I'd not have killed him had I known."

Alaric ignored the tone. "So… On a scale of one to ten. How serious are you about going AWOL?"

"Come on," Damon missed his ring. Oddly, the absence was what seemed burdensome. Emily had given that to him. And he wanted it back. "I can't sleep on a couch forever."

"Move back in with me. I've got a big bed. We can share."

"Really?"

"Well, no." The waitress came over and Alaric ordered a hazel nut, triple layer slice of red velvet cake. He waited until the woman left to resume their talk. "What about Elena? She's back at the house now?"

"What about her?" _God_… If he had a nickel for every time someone tried to work him over by the power of Elena… he'd be rich. Richer than he already was. Not significantly richer, but still, it'd be something.

"Well, Stefan _was_ compelled to kill her, so it can't be too hard to cause a rift there. You can _do_ _something _there, I guess…"

"Hey, remember when I fucked your wife?"

The silence was long and awkward between the two of them. Other noises tried to fill in the void, car horns, mindless chatter, a kid slurping a slushie, forks and knives chipping away at cheap china, donuts frying and someone slapping a rolling pin down.

"Not really, Damon."

"I do. It was after she ran out on you. I fucked her, then I killed her, then I fucked her again."

"Your point?"

"Don't tell me about Elena," Damon slumped, strands of hair falling loose. _Remember, we're doing Jekyll today,_ he coached himself to calm,_ Save Hyde for when you're alone. _"She's Isobel's daughter, and while in my professional opinion Isobel was a dirty street-side whore, she _was _your wife, and despite the fact that she was a major two-timer, you loved her. You still love her. And Elena was her kid. So…"

"So?"

"So, I get it."

Alaric swirled his drink. "Get what? I wasn't going all Aesop on you. I was–"

"Trying to throw me a bone. I appreciate it, but she's like your stepdaughter or something. Step-niece? Some weird thing like that, and you're like my brother… and the whole thing feels kinda _iffy_. Stop worrying about me. "

"I'm not worried."

"So it's just my imagination, and you and Caroline aren't taking turns at playing babysitter? The two of you are on my ass from sunrise to sunset?" His own personal suicide watch. Somehow or the other, word of his heroics back at Klaus' place had got out. Caroline was getting closer and closer… only a matter of time before he tried to hug him, or throw him an intervention. Stefan was practically a sentinel of vigilance, never sleeping, or sleeping with both eyes open.

"We're hanging out with you."

"You're keeping tabs because you're afraid I walk out into the sun. Or I go insane and rip everybody's hearts out. I can tell you right now, your concern is appreciated, but unwarranted." He might go insane and kill everybody, but he could give his word not to walk out into the sun. He was pass the stage where he'd incinerate instantaneously. It'd take him a good couple of minutes and he wasn't up for that. There was such a thing as too much pain, and if anyone cared to notice, he was doing his best to _avoid_ sunlight, which was extremely difficult. Umbrellas, gloves and baseball caps could only get him so far.

"So this here…" Alaric leant back in his chair, looking every bit a shady vampire in his vertically striped shirt and corduroy pants. The dark life had suit him. Made him look like a retired Welsh rockstar. Kinda Bon Jovie going home.

"This is me moving on. Moving out. I can't take Mystic Falls any more. I can't. I can't stay here and watch her live here and not be with her. I don't want to see her get old. I don't care if she lives happily ever after, I'll fucking hate it. At some point in time, someone's going to be able to get under her skin deeper than I could and work pass all her issues. She's going to let somebody into her heart someday, but if it's not going to be me, I don't want to fucking know about it. If I stay here, I'm going to lose it, and I'll change her. Just snap her neck."

"Damon…"

"No…" Damon's shoulders squared. "You don't get what I'm saying. You're still human enough to remember what love is supposed to be like. I'm describing this to you, but you can't understand… My love is selfish… and violent… and all-consuming. I need something to devour, Al. I need…" he sighed. "And the thing is… I know she loves me. I know it, but she can't admit it to herself or me or anyone because, let's face it, I'm the evil parasitic vampire who's killed her grandmother twice."

"You're being harsh."

"I _am_ harsh. We're just dudes hanging out. You don't have to tolerate any of my shit, but imagine that you're Bonnie. Would you really, honest to God, give me the time of day?"

"If you give her time–"

"_I can't do that._ I'm a vampire, Al, and one of the bad kinds. It's getting harder and harder to remember who I'm supposed to be on a day to day basis. Am I still good? Am I drinking my blood fresh or from the bag today? If I rip Jeremy's heart out and burn his body to ash, would they mind? Is it possible for him to survive that? Because he's _immune_ to death… I'm tired of not being _me. _That's what I've learnt on this entire, depressive adventure. A – that I should have loved Bonnie from the very first time we _collided, _and B – that my life is one big cosmic ball of _suck_. And it's not fair, because in a way, I'm better than Stefan. He rolls his crazy up into a nice little bundle and puts it away in his closet. Then he takes it down every decade or two and has himself a RipperFest. Me, I display my crazy. I put my psycho on stage. What you see is almost what you get, but chicks digs the brooding type, right? The silent serial killer types always get the girl."

"Why Bonnie?"

"Because she's the best person I've met in my hundred and seventy years. Pretty damn near perfect, and if she of all people could love me, then I validate my sordid existence and life is worth living. Can you imagine how utterly depressive it is being _my_ age and realising that your _entire_ life is shit? Nothing? If it's between dying and prolonging this continued _animation, _I pick dying any day."

"I thought you were moving out of the Falls."

"I am moving. Then I'm going to jump in the nearest fireplace."

"And what if Bonnie changes her mind, like five minutes after you go ashes to ashes?"

"Too much Shakespeare, Al."

"Really? Cause your life reads like a tragedy."

"And then you don't see why I believe in euthanasia? Somebody should have put me down years ago. We need more of your kind in the world."

"My kind?"

"The vampire hunting kind. I suddenly get why you people do what you do–"

"You people?"

"You crossbow-wielding vervain suckers. By the way, how's that going, building up your tolerance?"

"It's good. I'm up to two sips a day."

"That's nice. Keep that resistance up… otherwise…" he chuckled, "Well, you've seen Stefan. I don't need to go into that."

Alaric exhaled, watched the sun reflect off his shiny new blue ring… "Yeah… Fine whatever. Go kill yourself."

"I will,"

"See if I care."

"I don't care if you care."

"Fine, whatever dude."

"Don't call me dude."

"If you're going to kill yourself, I'm going to call you whatever I want."

"Seriously? You're playing that card, on me?"

"And I'm playing another one. I'll tell Bonnie."

"Tell her what?"

"That you're going suicidal."

"And then what?"

"Even if she doesn't give a shit about you, she'll never let you go through with it. She's a volunteer humanitarian."

"And then what?"

"And then, if you still go through with it, she'll feel bad about it."

"You're trying to guilt trip _me_? _Me_? I'm not after some pity hug."

"Then don't call it a pity hug. I thought _you_ were the master schemer. The mack daddy pimp of all time and you're telling me you can't work over a seventeen year old girl? Shame on you, Damon."

Damon looked around the café, just in case Alaric was talking to _another_ Damon. "Excuse me?"

"I said shame on you. All this shit. You're a quitter. You're giving up."

"I'm–"

"I've seen you work harder at Elena. You went on for _months_ making a right jackass of yourself hounding after her, tongue dragging behind you… and now, you say that you in _love _love with Bonnie, and you give up after what, a week? You're chickenshit."

"It wasn't a week! I _died_ and went to witch heaven!"

"And what? That was an opportunity and what did you do with it? You embarrass me."

"I embarrass you?"

"Yeah! If Bonnie was my chick–"

"Don't go there."

Alaric loosened his posture, "If Bonnie was my chick, my seventeen year old, underage, roiled with self-esteem issues chick, my name would be tattooed on her _ass_ by now."

"Al."

"In fact, after you kill yourself, I think I'll make a play for it."

"You're way too old for her."

"Says you? _Right_."

"And she'd never go for you."

"Really. Because I've already got a plan going that might work. I fail her in some assignment or the other, she comes up to my desk and asks 'Is there anything at all I can do for some extra credit?' And I go 'No, you failed.' And then she puts her hand down my pants and does that pouty thing with her mouth, 'I'll do _anything'. _And I lock the door–"

"Have I ever told you what a complete asshole you are?"

"I _am _an asshole. An undead asshole thanks to you, and you are a _super _asshole. You're a total dickhead, and that's why we're friends. You're the kind of dickhead I wish I could be. You know how many days I wished I could get up, burn my clothes and just wear black? I didn't, but I _wanted_ to. Since I've known you, I've been living out my dickhead dreams vicariously through you."

"Touching." It was.

"Seriously. I _live _for crazy shit like Damon doing karaoke at the Grille. And I don't want to see you go out like this. You can do it."

Damon got up to leave. "All right, Alaric."

"You can do it," the vampire history teacher repeated, the second time doing a spot on Rob Schneider impersonation.

"Alaric…"

"Okay, check this deal out, Damon - try your hardest, 110 percent hardest at landing Bonnie. Try anything, try super-sexy, try puppy-dog, try anything. All hundred and seventy years of your life have been leading you up to this point where you _need_ to pick up the chick. Use every line in the book, every gimmick, every trick you've ever used to stupefy a girl. Look at that shit you pulled with Andie – _half _the days you didn't even have to compel her, that's how bad you had her whammied. You give it your best shot Damon, and if she's a no-go, then fine, go kill yourself. If you can't get Bonnie '_can anybody find me somebody to love_' Bennet, Bonnie '_I'm so desperate I dated my Elena's baby bro'_ Bennet, Bonnie '_sweet valley high virgin'_ Bennet–"

"I get it."

"She even does that retarded PETA thing. She takes stray, mangy dogs off the street and bathes them at the pound. If you can't get _that _Bonnie to give you a chance, then I think you _owe_ it to the world to kill yourself. I'll _push_ you out into the sun."


	35. Some flies prefer vinegar

Bonnie swallowed in as deep a breath as her lungs would hold, pushed the door open and stepped into the Gilbert House. Instantly the she felt the auras of the house's occupants. Elena, resolved, sad… Caroline, bubbly. Alaric, also kinda bubbly. And… And then the darkness. Damon. It might be cruel, but part of her regretted that Damon had gotten Stefan out of his compulsion. She didn't mind Damon staying in the house if Elena was in the lake house. But Damon and Elena? In Elena's house?

Caroline had said that she shouldn't stand for it.

Really, she shouldn't.

She smoothed out the skirt she was wearing, tried in vain to pull it just a little lower down her thighs. No helping it now… There was be no going back. She put her hand to the banister, but before she could move she hesitated.

What was she going to say?

_Hey Damon, remember when we were having sex in the imaginary witch dreamland, right before you killed my ghost grandmother, when you said you loved me? Remember that? So was that just an in the moment thing, or what? Are we switching back to Elena Time?_

_Not to be clingy, but do you love me?_

_Marry me, Damon, and let's make a batch of vampire-witch baby monsters._

_Damon, you should meet my father. Its time I introduced him to my de-virginator._

_Bite my ass, Damon. I still hate you. Who cares if you're obsessed with Elena. I'm hot. Imaginary one night stands don't mean shit to me, so fuck off._

_No seriously, bite my ass, Damon. I want to feel you teeth on me._

_Love me, love me, pretend that you love me._

Her foot went backward instead.

Powers or no powers, she had a lot of growing up to she didn't want to do it. Life with Papa Bennett had been all about pretty princesses who met their dream prince on their birthdays, and had a precious baby (through some clandestine sexual relation that always got omitted from the story). Nobody wrote stories about pretty witches in love with evil vampires. There was no advice column out there to tell her what to do.

_How to land the hottest boyfriend possible in three easy steps, all without making an ass out of yourself._ She'd read that.

She should go. She should go put on a pair of panties, jeans – baggy jeans – and a knitted wool sweater. Sexy was not her expertise. She was good at pretty, in a modest sort of way. She was okay at elegantly beautiful. She had a thriving sense of fashion and she could wear the shit out of an evening gown… and that was all well and good. Good girl Bonnie had landed herself a good cute Jeremy…

Except she didn't want a Jeremy, she wanted a Damon. A bad to the bone, smoking hot Damon.

And he was right there for the taking. She'd climb up the seventeen stairs, same as she'd done how many times before, and he'd be there. One way or another. They'd settle it. He'd look at her, tricked out in flip flops, miniskirt and ultra wide-neck tee, and he'd say something. Either a scant '_Witch'_ and half a nod, or he'd swoop her up in his arms and declare her his lady of love and beauty. She'd like something dramatic like that. Something real Cinderella-esque.

"Honestly, I don't mind," she heard Elena say and she froze, like a shaved deer caught in an artic wind.

"I know you don't but I'm not going to leave off Alaric's sofa just to slum it on yours." Damon. _The_ Damon. _Her _Damon.

"There's Jeremy's room."

"Why would I ever want to be there? Why would I subject myself to that? I can imagine the crusty socks and overflowing waste paper basket well enough without getting actual visual confirmation."

"Jere's not like that."

"Honestly, Elena. I'm just… done with Mystic Falls. You girls and your brother can return to your regularly scheduled programing, and–"

Caroline burst through the door, coming from the kitchen with a bottle of coke and a bag of popcorn. Her eyebrows went up as Bonnie put a finger to her lips and did a quick spell to mute the girl. Caroline pouted then nodded furiously.

_Good girl._

"I've maxed out on this town's supply of seventeen year old girls." Damon's voice again, "You, Bonnie and Caroline are the only people I'd consider actually worthy of even a modicum of respect, and I've had it up to here with all of you. Caroline's a blood-drinking, coked-up Barbie doll. Bonnie's a hypocritical self-righteous pyromaniac. And… you've perfected the persona of irresistibly unattainable. Sometimes playing hard to get doesn't work, Elena. Sometimes the guy just gives up and moves on."

"What about Klaus?"

"What about him?"

"He's still alive, isn't he? You'll just leave us here? You'll leave _me_ here? After you promised not to?"

_Oohh… Secret promises… hmm._ Caroline made to say something and flinched.

"Promises get broken every day, Elena. I don't know what else you expect from me. If Klaus wants to kill you, you're dead. I try to stop him, I'm dead. You want me to die for you? I've died twice now, and the third time I might not wake up again, so thanks for the opportunity and all, but no thanks."

"What about Bonnie?"

"What about her?"

Bonnie held her breath, not even daring to breath.

"The two of you were working on that spell, you faced down Klaus together and the two of you–"

"The three of us you mean. It was me, Bonnie and Magwyr in that tangle, so most of what you think you're talking about is really more between me and Magwyr than me and Bonnie. Bonnie isn't going to remember half of what she did, or thought, or anything."

"Caroline said she remembered a good bit of Magwyr's spells. She's stronger now. If the two of you keep working at it, then Klaus–"

"Big whoop, Bonnie gets new powers. She gets a weekly upgrade far as I can tell, and she's still only good at floating feathers and lighting candles–"

"You like her."

"I like her? Are we five years old, Elena? I never _disliked_ her…"

"Alaric said you were going to walk out in the sun, if she didn't 'come back to you', and that's the words he used. And there was that karaoke thing you did and I _know_ what that whole Sex on Fire nonsense was about. Just admit it."

"Admit what?"

"You and Bonnie."

"Nothing to admit. I was just blowing smoke. Honestly, can you see me and Bonnie together? Can you see that happening? Really Elena, do you see me winning boyfriend of the year award? I've got the rest of the town fooled but I thought you saw me. Come on, why Stefan and not me? I've got a whole basket full of flaws that you've probably got written down somewhere. Stefan writes his diaries, he has his serial killer hideout, maybe I should do something like that, huh? Make a nice neat catalogue of all the humans I've killed, except there are some people whose names I can't remember so there'll be like a thousand Jane Does. I'll type it up, Times New Roman, and email it to you guys–"

"Nobody cares–"

"You don't care? You don't care that I killed your football coach for no reason? I didn't even drink his blood, just ripped his throat out."

"Yeah, but you've saved my life and that cancels out a whole lot, at least to me. Evil's in the eyes of the beholder, and you're not evil."

"Well, tell Bonnie that and then get back to me. Did you hear the part where I kill her grandmother a second time around? How does that behold to you?"

"Damon."

"I'm done, Elena. Remember how life was before I got here? Go back to that and–"

Caroline sneezed.

Bonnie gasped. _Nice_.

Run?

Was that an option?

What were eavesdroppers supposed to do?

Thunk, thunk, thunk, Elena stomped down the stairs taking them two at a time.

Black boots, blue jeans…

"_Hey!" _Bonnie put on the most doe eyed innocent face she could muster and put her hand bag down on the counter.

Elena's face was blank. Then confused. "Bonnie… Caroline? How long were you guys…."

"We just came."

"And I was just leaving," Damon added, coming down the stairs, passing behind Elena and brushing past her near enough for her to smell the alcohol on him.

_Am I invisible again?_ "Leaving where?" her pathetic sounding voice asked. He hadn't looked at her really, just gone past into the living area. He was looking for something… He could go up on stage in front of all her friends and sing "Sex on Fire" but he couldn't look at her? After she'd made him a brand new sun proof ring? If at first you don't succeed... "What's up, Damon?"

"Up, Bonnie?" he cut her a smirk, blue eyes distant and detached. "You walk down the street looking like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like if you're the wrong side of laundry day."

_So not the look she'd been going for._ Ouch. Her eyes stung suddenly. Why did he have to be such an ass? What had happened to being in love with her? Where was the Damon who was supposed to be the tree with entwining roots or whatever shit? Where was the version that had been so gentle with her against a window pane in Canada? "Maybe I _am_ on the wrong side of laundry day, jackass."

"Ohh," he ruffled through a set of drawers, pulling angrily at papers and tossing them aside.

"What are you looking for?" As if she cared. He was nothing. She could do better. She deserved better. She could get better. There might be too much bad blood between herself and Klaus but she could more than swing Elijah. She didn't even need a vampire, all things considered. A werewolf toy boy would do. Somebody beastly hot, like Tyler's uncle. Tyler could have another uncle out there. Hell, she could even swing Tyler. Any non-gay, non-blind male would be stupid not to jump at the chance to worship at her feet. She was Bonnie fucking Bennett. No one had shit on her. "What are you looking for?" she repeated.

"Deed to my house."

"The one you gave to Elena?" And that had a little bite in it. A little snarl.

"The one I'm taking back."

"Going to fix it up?" She really was sorry about burning it down. There was a spell she could do to fix it back up spick and spandy, but… she'd let them sweat. Damon _was _an asshole, and Stefan too, in a way. They didn't deserve her magical help. Only her destruction. She should take a drive by and finish burning the _other_ half down.

"No. Going to sell it and use the cash to buy weed. Me and Jeremy thinking about opening up a joint venture supplying–"

Again with the Jeremy jibes. "Not funny." Jealousy could be hot on some guys. Not Damon. Jealousy on Damon made him liable to kill anybody from Jeremy to toddlers at the park – just the way his mind worked, illogical to the extreme.

"Am I laughing?" He wasn't. He most definitely wasn't.

"So what are we going to do about Klaus?" Pathetic, really, that she would stoop so low as to use Klaus as an excuse.

"You're the witch genius. Figure it out."

"I need you– _your_… vampire insight." Really, she didn't give half a rat's ass over Klaus. The dude had never hurt _her_ directly (except for that time at the dance and she was willing to move pass that). If it was one thing she'd learnt, it was that the time had come to start looking out for numero uno. "We have to keep at it."

"Stefan's probably the one you want for that. He's the good one, remember?"

"You're just going to move out?" Tick, tock, tick, tock…

"Got nowhere else to go." He slammed the drawer shut. "You burnt my house down, so my options in Mystic Falls have come down to couch, tent or sidewalk. I choose comfy hotel room in Miami with a couple of swimsuit models for decoration."

Elena slumped onto her couch. "Don't make us beg, Damon. Just stay here."

_You'd like that, wouldn't you, Queen Elena, almighty goddess of the vampires. _

He exhaled heavily, "I just came here because Alaric was having a problem with my birds in his apartment and you have a yard. I'm not moving in with you, Elena."

_You had best not if you know what's good for you. If you fall back in love with her, I will kill you. I will burn you to ash and flush you down the toilet, I swear it. I really swear it, Damon. On the dead grandmother you killed twice, I will destroy you. _"I have a yard. Move in with me."

_And I said that out loud?_

The room had gone silent.

All of Mystic Falls had heard, gasped and gone silent.

Her heart stopped beating for a little while.

Then Elena's front lawn buttercup plant went up in flames as her grip on her magic loosened.

_Just burn everything down to the ground…yeah. _Fire was always a goodplan_. _It had worked so well the last time. _No evidence whatsoever.…_

"Come again?" he was making one of his faces at her. The one that loosely translated into 'If you don't mind clarifying what you mean by that, do go on.'

She shrugged, and the collar of her tee willed itself down her shoulder. "Move in with me."

His head angled and he screwed up his face. "I think I prefer Miami. At least over there, the company's less judgemental and I'll find somebody who maybe won't believe that I'm the devil incarnate. Models really do come cheap. Cheap, and easier than you Bonnie Bennett."

A vase cracked. Water and lilies spilled. "Asshole! Just move in with me!" If he wasn't careful, she would have to kill him. She'd offered twice now. Twice. Let him turn down a third offer and see.

Damon checked his watch. "Move in with you?"

"Yeah." There, three times.

"You and your dad?"

"Yes." And just by the look on his face when she answered, she knew, just _knew _in her core, that he was going to say something spectacularly dickish.

"What's his blood type? B-neg right?"

The muscle under her right eye twitched and she sent him slamming up into the ceiling, loosening some of the panel. She slammed him back down to the tile and smiled when he cracked it, just to make a point. _Fuck you, Damon._

_So much for love._

Damon was, and forever would be an ass. With zero capability of any kind of real emotion or consideration for anyone's feelings. She sniffed, grabbed her purse and fumbled through the pocket for the ring she'd made. She'd charmed one of her own rings. One that her mother had left behind. A nice gesture, she'd thought. Stupid fucking Damon making her cry with his damn assness!

She flung the ring down to him where he remained sprawled on the broken pieces of tile.

Why to fuck hadn't she worn underwear? What had she been thinking, that she'd give him a lap dance in Elena's living room? Beyond stupid!

Could he see up her skirt?

_What you think about that? You're going to miss out on all of that! No Bonnie Butterscotch for you!_

He wasn't moving.

She toed his face. He groaned but nothing more. She hadn't slammed him _that_ hard, had she?

He really wasn't moving.

Could she knock a vampire out? She toed his face again, poking his cheek with her big toe. Nothing.

"Damon?" She wanted to go down on her knees, cradle his head in her arms, scoop him up and nurse him with her love Florence Nightingale style, but she'd not fallen _that_ far. She might or might not be in love with him, but either way, she was _not_ going to become the woman who cried for Damon. If he wanted tears he really would be better off with Elena because she was all cried out. Not over him in specific but over him and Klaus and Elena and Jeremy and all the pack of mere mortals who made up the rest of Mystic Falls. And her grams.

"Damon?" She'd been the one to send him back, modifying the resurrection spell Magwyr had planned to use. He'd killed all the other witches and left her there alone. He'd just watched. Not even angry, not dark and evil and threatening, just peaceful, resolved to _let_ her do whatever she willed with him.

What if she'd botched it? _Fuck. "_Damon_?" _What if he'd come back to the real world more vulnerable than before? She eyed a knife, her wrist, his mouth… There was nothing a little witch blood couldn't patch up.

Caroline spectated. Elena hovered.

"Damon?"

His eyes flickered, opened and stared up at her. "So… Daddy dearest is off limits..." he drawled. "All you had to say."

_Actions speak louder than words._ She withdrew the toe from his face. "Sorry."

"You know I don't mind."

"What happened to your upgrade?"

"I'm fire-proof and aneurysm-proof. Not proof to… random acts of violence, and in case you didn't notice, I was going for normal this morning."

There _were_ less crows about and the permanent shadow around him _did_ seem a little lighter. "As opposed to demented blood-crazy vampire who'll kill women and children for fun?"

"Yeah…"

She had to say something now. This was the moment. Him down on the floor, she standing above him in righteous superiority like a merciful, beautiful angel of vengeance, like a Valkyrie… this was the moment. The moment to claim him. Brand his skin with hot iron in the shape of a 'B'. Leave a set of teeth marks on his perfect neck. Urinate on him and then his entire wardrobe so that all the other bitches got the word – back to fuck off, he's owned.

She schooled her face into the strictest look she could muster. "Damon, I'm not saying this again. I love you, somehow, and I want you to move in with me."

"Somehow."

"Meaning despite you being the most evil thing in existence. If everything was right in the world I'd be working on killing _you _instead of Klaus, but you got lucky."

"Where would I sleep?"

"With me." Were they still there, watching? Elena and Caroline and all the spectators of the Gilbert House. "Meaning," she tried to correct, "Meaning in my room on the carpet or the opposite end of my bed with one person on top the covers and the other person under. That'd be me – I'd be the one under the covers, and you'd keep your hands to yourself. And not doing anything funny either, you'd keep your hands folded and tucked in." _God…_

"You have a blood freezer?"

"I'll let you feed off me."

"Really now?" he squinted his eyes.

"You'll have to give back though. Some of Mag's spells I want to try out."

"And I just live in your one bedroom... I can't use the bathroom or the living room or the kitchen because I'm guessing that your dad isn't going to get a heads up on what's happening. I just stay in your room… like one of _those _vampires…" He got up suddenly, grabbed the duffel bag he'd dropped and slung it over his shoulder. Then he winked at her. "Thanks but… I don't do Twilight. And I've got something of a tour planned out. Miami's followed up by Rio which is followed up by Milan which is followed up by Thailand and… well the tour's kinda open after that."

Well, there it was. Damon being an asshole. Big shock. "Fine."

"Really, is it fine?" his hand moved around the doorknob. A new smirking expression spread over his face. "I'm willing to stay, you just have to convince me. Convince me to stay. Get down on your knees and beg. Plead."

"You wish, Damon."

"Think I'd waste a wish on you. I'd wish for a big four-poster bed with feather pillows, Katherine and Elena and handcuffs with –"

"You piece of–" Another vase broke, and a couple windows, and the bulb in the streetlight outside. "I hate you!"

"Say it like you mean it."

"Fuck you!"

"Yeah, you sure you want to go with that?"

"Yeah, because when I actually think about it, you're a dick. Of all the vampires I know, even including Klaus, you're the _absolute_ worst. If I want a vampire, I can do _way_ better than you. You don't even compare to Klaus. Or Elijah." _And_ _stick_ _it_ _in_, "Or Stefan–"

He closed the distance between them immediately, eyes gone black, fangs bared. "You don't want to play that game with me, girl."

Some of the magic had definitely rubbed off on him. The upgrade suit him. He was a little bit more evil, a little bit less controlled, but more natural. The perfect familiar, Magwyr had said, and she could see it now. They weren't even touching, and she could feel his energy humming, reverberating with her own.

_Power couple – _extreme.

They'd be so hot together. Couldn't he see that?

He took a step forward, she took one back. Something about his teeth had that effect on her. Another one forward, another one back. Another, another, another… Her back hit the counter and she stopped. He didn't.

"Oh, I said the S-word."

His arms went around her waist lifting her up to sit on the counter. Then his hands were up on the bare skin of her thighs, his teeth grazing over the bare skin of her neck for a fraction of a moment while he savoured the faint hint of strawberry, before his teeth clenched down releasing a torrent of blood from her jugular. _"You're a demon, you know that, Bonnie? In sheep's clothing. Stop resisting, and be mine."_

"_I don't do monogamous."_

"_Neither do I, but if I'm willing to make the effort, you could give it a try." _A hand disappeared into her collar and squeezed one of her breasts. His teeth came free of her and his mouth hovered, dripping her own blood, a millimetre away from hers. All black eyes stared into hers. Her top came off.

Her back arched into his touch as his lips fluttered down her neck. Her whole body responded when he cupped one of her breasts, sucking hard on the nipple. "Fuck me, Damon," she moaned, panting. _"If you ever cheat on me, I will destroy you. Destroy. Seriously. I will end your existence. I'll puree your brain, dismember you and scatter your ashes to the far side of the world."_

"_Ditto."_

She sucked his tongue into her mouth when he kissed her again. _"No more Elena devotion."_

The hand that had been at her breast was now between her legs cupping her hot sex. _"No more Stefan devotion. No more talking to him, or Jeremy, or Elijah… or anybody who's not me."_ Two fingers plunged into her as he stifled her scream with his mouth. _"Even if you love somebody else, just love me more. I need you, Bonnie. I'm putting everything that I am in your hands, don't throw me away."_

Her fingers reached down to find his hand between her legs. "_Don't ditch me for Elena. Or I'll kill you. And no more natural selection of females under twenty."_

"_A man's got to eat, Bonnie."_

"_That's what you've got me for. Eat my pussy out, Damon."_

Eyebrows went up. Fangs disappeared. The smirk returned. "You've got to work on this," he said softly. "No underwear, mini skirt, getting fingered on the kitchen counter by the sexy, older danger guy… You watch too much tv."

She moaned in his ear when he started working at her clit, prodding it out. _"You don't like?"_

"_No, I like." _His hands went under her knees, pulling her legs up to the counter top, bending them up and spreading her open. "_I'm supremely into everything you say and do."_ He kissed his way up her thigh to her centre. _"And if you want your pussy eaten out, I'm only happy to oblige." _His tongue slowly pressed its way inside her.

Her hands let go of his hair and quested behind her for support. Her head sagged back. Her eyes flickered open.

Elena.

Caroline.

Alaric.

She actually made a _poof_ sound when she teleported out of the room.

Damon sighed.

Kitchen counter sex with and her friends in the audience might have been a bit much he figured in hindsight. Next time he'd start small, with something like a shared ice cream, but he'd thought if he could get it out of the way early then everything else would be a walk in the park after. Heap all the awkward into one big pile and swallow it down like Buckley's. Or broccoli.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Caroline was screaming at him.

Elena looked shell-shocked.

Alaric… The pervert.

"Where you actually going to watch?" Damon asked, trying to look angry but wanting to laugh more than anything. He was on cloud nine. Cloud ninety nine. He picked up his new ring off the floor and fixed it on his finger. _Eat my pussy out, Damon. _Who speaks like that?

"Curiosity," the teacher answered, pulling a blood bag from Elena's fridge. "You got a home invitation though, so good for you. All you needed to do was be your natural charming self. Huh. And for the record, this wasn't what I meant by blasé. I don't think there's even a word for what you just did."

"She's probably back under her bed by now. Damon! You _asswipe_!" Caroline shrieked. She grabbed her car keys out of the bowl. "For the love of God, Damon, if you hurt her physically or emotionally or–" she fumed as she stormed towards the door. "I'll drown you in vervain. Another stunt like that, and I'll drown you!"

"Couldn't help it," he shrugged, "I'm in love with a seventeen year old witch who will ultimately prove to be my destruction. So what if she's a bit shy? I'll break her out of it… bring out her inner superfreak." She was in fact, exactly right there under her bed, one of his crows reported.

No matter. He had his invitation. On top of the bed, under the bed, desk top, table top. Mattress burn, carpet burn, same diff. Bedroom, forest floor, bad guys' crib, the Other Side… Hadn't he proven exactly how flexible he was?

"Don't you feel dirty?" Caroline asked, her face screwed up in disgust.

"I _am _dirty. Thought you knew that."

"You're really going to live in her room, though?" Alaric asked moving into the kitchen warily. "That'll be creepy."

After all his hard work to get to there? Of course he was going to live in her room. He'd liked his old room at the boarding house, but she'd burnt it down. Maybe he might not _like_ living in a closet, but so what? "Dude," he picked up the duffel bag with his clothes. "You know that thing called pride?" He raised an eyebrow as he turned the doorknob, taking a good look at all their faces. "Proud men don't get to have crazy witch sex twenty-four seven which is what I'm about to do with the absolute hottest witch to ever exist, so suck on it and I'll catch you on the flipside. I don't want to hear from any of you unless it's an emergency. Like if Klaus starts hacking people to pieces with a machete–"

"He did that two weeks ago."

_Okay. _"Well, if he comes back again, holler. And Elena…" The girl looked so stunned, so flabbergasted, her delicate sensibilities so traumatized… He should laugh. "If I ever convince Bonnie to do a threeway, you'll be the first person I call, so cheer up. And tell Stefan…" But it was too much to say. He'd have to start writing a diary himself just to keep track of it all. Who'd said what about him, who'd kissed who, who'd set him on fire, what Klaus had done, who's head he'd ripped off, what he'd been wearing… the unicorns and the talking trees… "Never mind, I'll send him a text."

**AN. The end. All feedback appreciated. **


End file.
